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FLOWER DE HUNDRED 


f&xs. burton garrison* 

❖ 

THE CIRCLE OF A CENTURY. 

AN ERRANT WOOING. 

A BACHELOR MAID. 

SWEET BELLS OUT OF TUNE. 

CROW’S NEST AND BELHAVEN TALES. 
GOOD AMERICANS. 

THE ANGLOMANIACS. 

A DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH. 

FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

THE MERRY MAID OF ARCADY. 

A VIRGINIA COUSIN AND BAR HARBOR 
TALES. 

A SON OF THE OLD DOMINION. 






FLOWER DE HUNDRED 


Ube Storp of a 
Virginia plantation 


BY 


/ 


MRS. BURTON HARRISON 



NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 
1899 


45144 


Copyright, 1899, 

By The Century Co. 

Copyright, 1890, 

By Cassell Publishing Company. 


A ll rights reserved. 


TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 



n\ , v*'b 

'Avr>) • A 


THE DE VINNE PRESS. 


TO THE MEMORY OF 


1% purttxs*. 


) 



PREFATORY NOTE. 


The author, who has written what here follows that 
to her readers of the generation of to-day some of the 
social aspects it portrays may be better understood, 
desires to say that, while the main incidents of the 
story are based upon facts more or less known in the 
Southern country, she has in no case fitted them to 
actual personalities or localities. 

The Sea Urchins, Bar Harbor, 

October, 1890. 










» 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED 






































LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


HE TOOK THE CHAIN AND SNAPPED IT AROUND HER 
SLIM AND STATELY THROAT Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

THAT MADCAP MILES HAD RIDDEN HER UP THE 


FRONT STEPS AND INTO THE BIG HALL 14 

THEY WERE A FAIR SIGHT TO LOOK UPON 118 

THERE, ON A PALLET, LAY A MAN PAINFULLY 
EMACIATED 152 

DRAGGING HIMSELF NEARER, MILES FOUND THAT 
HIS FRIEND HAD FAINTED 238 











Flower de Hundred. 

QU& Jltxrv# of a Wxjgtftxia glautatixrtt. 


CHAPTER I. 

Far down the winding river named in honor of 
King James by the navigators Newport and Smith, who 
wrested from the dusky dwellers on its banks an earlier 
right to call it for their sovereign King Powhatan, 
stands an old brick house. With spreading wings and 
airy colonnades it is a type of the stately by-gones 
of Virginia’s ancient aristocracy now crumbling to sure 
decay. Surrounding its lawns and rose-gardens are 
marshes full of game, wheat fields and tobacco fields 
still ready to answer to a fructifying touch, tall forests 
of unbroken shade. Wars, more than one, and Indian 
massacres and forays, have swept over it to leave no 
enduring trace. What damage the centuries could do, 
Nature, with gentle diligence, has overlaid with moss, 
with grass, with bracken, and with innumerable flowers. 

Happier in fortune than most of their contempora- 
ries, the family still controlling the numerous acres of 
the estate is by direct descent the same which in the 


2 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


person of a cadet of an English house established itself 
here shortly after King Charles was beheaded. 

Originally a separate district or Hundred, the place 
retained the name bestowed on it in early colonial 
days, which has been successively written “ Flower- 
dieu,” “Fleur de,” and “Flower de” Hundred. The 
Throckmortons, who have been in every generation 
conservative folk, tenacious of keeping things as their 
fathers left them, and disinclined to idle changes, 
would as soon think of selling the silver chalice pre- 
sented by Queen Anne to their parish church, as of 
attempting to improve on the quaint name of their 
ancient home. 

To make clear the position of affairs at the begin- 
ning of my story, which, if you pleasefj being a loyal 
Virginian, I date from “before the war,” we may glance 
at the antecedents of Richard Throckmorton, Esq., 
commonly known as “the Colonel,” who, at that time, 
was the widowed owner of the mansion-house. With- 
out calling upon the antiquarian aid of the family 
genealogy, — a roll of parchment pigeon-holed in the 
Colonel’s study, and reverenced next to the Bible, — I 
may succeed in outlining, briefly yet comprehensively, 
the successive proprietors of the estate. Yonder por- 
trait, above the decanters on the sideboard in the 
dining-room, is that of the founder of the colonial line, 
Guy, the Cavalier, who died exalting King Charles as 
“a thing enskied,” and hating Cromwell as the latter 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


3 


hated the fiend. Needless to say he was of the 
party who tried to get the second Charles to come 
over from Breda and be King of fair Virginia. Under 
glass in the library has always been kept, when the 
family has been at home, one of the famous Carolo- 
rum medals. No one knows what became of it during 
the war between the States, but the Colonel is sus- 
pected of having worn it around his neck as an amulet 
in battle, and for safe keeping. 

It is a significant fact that, in these latter days of 
unbelief, certain young Throckmortons have sprung up 
to say, while fingering the token old Guy held dearer 
than aught save honor, “I think England was well rid 
of both son and father of the royal house of Stuart.” 
But then, Cousin Polly always hushes them ! 

On the table by the medal lies a tome bound in vel- 
lum, showing the autograph and book-plate of Guy 
the first settler. It is “A Chronicle of the Kings of 
England from the time of the Romans Government 
unto the Raigne of our Soveraigne Lord King Charles, 
containing all passages of State and Church, with all 
other observations proper for a Chronicle, etc., by Sir 
Richard Baker, Knight. The fecond Edition.” It 
was “Printed” in London “by J. Flefher and E. Cotes,” 
and “fold by Laurence Sadler at the figne of the 
Gilded Lyon, and by Thomas Williams at the figne of 
the Bible, in Little Britaine. 1653.” In the dedica- 
tion “To the High and Mighty Prince Charles, Prince 


4 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, Eldeft Sonne to our 
Soveraigne Lord, Charles, King of Great Britaine, 
France and Ireland,” occurs this sentiment: “For my- 
felf I fhould account it happineffe enough that I have 
lived to fee the days of your illuftrious Father, if it 
were not a great unhappinefse to fee them over caft 
with cloudf; and yet when thefe cloudf fhall be dif- 
pel’d, will it not make him fhine with the greater 
fplendour? And thif, as old as I am, I doubt not to 
live myfelf, to fee, and having once feen it, fhall then 
willingly fay my Nunc Dimittis, and leave the joy of 
your glorious times for Another Age.” Outlining 
this passage is a mark in faded ink, and written 
against it the words, “Eheu! Eheu !” signed “G. T., 
1665.” For, one thing and another preventing, the 
self-exiled Cavalier never returned to England. He 
contented himself with experiments in silk-culture — 
planted the mulberry trees, one of whose descendants 
drops purple fruit into the quarter well — and imported 
Armenians to sustain his industry. He was active in 
bringing to punishment the captain of the ship in 
which he and his dame embarked from England, who 
had allowed his sailors to condemn and hang a poor 
emigrant woman, forced by torture to confess her- 
self a witch, “because of the ship’s miscarriage near 
the Western Isles, which had been like to consign all 
soules on board to the bosom of the deep.” He de- 
vised the scheme for civilizing the Indians by which 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


5 


“for every eight wolves’ heads delivered by an Indian 
to the authorities, the head man should receive a cow 
as a step toward making him a Christian.” And he 
was hand in glove with the rulers of the Colony for 
the furtherance of all pacific and public spirited enter- 
prises. Honored, prosperous and happy he passed 
away; but to the last his heart turned in longing to 
the Mother Land. 

The wife of Guy Throckmorton came of a noble 
Scottish family. Try as they may to invest this pro- 
genitress with the charms of old romance, her fol- 
lowers are obliged to hope that the Lady Mary was 
better than she looked She it is whose frame 
hangs next to Guy’s. With a stiff busk and low-cut 
gown, two awkward arms encircling a lute, her hair in 
spirals under a ferroniere , she is like a lay figure beside 
the graceful ladies of a later day. The Squire, himself, 
in a full-bottomed pelisse, with his pointed mustache 
and imperial, and ink-black locks, is depicted with a 
savage scowl that ill assorts with the character he bore. 

Lady Mary’s ancestor, who for refusing to adopt the 
faith of King James II., perished in the grim embrace of 
the “Maiden,” is next — yon melancholy Jacques, whose 
portrait must have been taken on his way to meet the 
caresses of that strangling spinster. At Christmas 
time, the young people give him a double allowance of 
evergreens, “to cheer the poor thing up,” says little 
Ursula. 


6 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“Ye Honorable Guy Throckmorton, Esquire,” and 
“Ye Dame Mary, his noble spouse,” lie in the grave- 
yard of the church just mentioned, where, on alternate 
Sundays, sharing as they do a rector with the adjoin- 
ing parish, the family attend service. On the other 
days, the tutor, who is an ordained priest, reads 
Morning Prayer at home. The stone over Lady 
Mary, riven asunder by the fall of an oak tree struck 
by lightning, has, growing between the pieces of the 
broken slab, a stalwart little oak; and the crest on 
Guy’s tomb displays a huge rosette of lichen blurring 
the wyvern’s beak, and recalling the crow in the fable 
that held on to a piece of cheese. 

Better a resting-place like this, on the banks of the 
placid river, than an ancestral vault with the tattered 
palls that deride its proud epitaphs! For here, in Vir- 
ginia, the sun almost always shines, and the squirrels 
meet to chatter about the abundant nuts, while in 
branches overhead the birds sing roundelays the long 
bright summer through. Most years, the star-of-Beth- 
lehem blossoms so thickly around the two graves as to 
look like a bridal wreath above the sleeping pair. 

It was their grandson, Miles, who rode with Spots- 
wood, among the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. 
Educated in England, as a youngster he had flourished 
at the Court of Queen Anne, knew all the fine and 
clever people of the period, and brought back to Vir- 
ginia more luxurious ways and belongings than had 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 7 

been seen there until then. The ebon cabinet inlaid 
with ivory, once owned by Anne Boleyn, and most of 
the books and pictures, with the “deer-foot” and “drop- 
and-garland” silver, came over in Miles’s time. His 
portrait, by Kneller, has languishing dark eyes, and lips 
formed for kissing and for epigram. His smart attire, 
carried so jauntily, causes the girls to sigh beneath his 
gay presentment, and twit to distraction their cousins 
and other beaux who are condemned to wear modern 
unbecoming garb. The bundles of old letters kept in 
Anne Boleyn’s cabinet, but, by the Colonel’s orders, 
under lock and key, show that Miles had his successes 
with the fair. 

After all his frolicking in England, he settled 
down as a Burgess in Virginia, and then won a high 
place in the Council of the Colony. He married a 
belle, who was also an heiress and brought him a large 
estate in another county — Miss Lydia Ludwell, daugh- 
ter of a gentleman who had fought at Blenheim and 
ended his days in the old country. Lydia’s portrait, 
made in London when she went over with her husband 
for a visit to her papa, is the pride of the Flower de 
Hundred collection; an exquisite creature — her hair 
looped with pearls, and wearing a court costume of 
satin with pearl embroidery over a hooped petticoat. 
In her slim rosy-tinted hand she carries an ostrich 
plume; her eyes smile with conscious triumph; her 
head sits proudly upon sloping shoulders. Near Mis- 


8 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


tress Miles is her daughter Ursula; at seventeen she 
died, crossed in love for Sir Ralph Verney, who, on 
arriving in the Colony, was discovered to have left so 
many ugly tales behind him in England, that her father 
interfered, and broke off the match. The young lady, 
dressed as a shepherdess, holds a crook in her hand, 
and behind her are pastured some painfully fore- 
shortened sheep. She is a lovely little maid, not 
brilliant like her mother, but with a wild-rose fresh- 
ness and appealing grace of her own that capture all 
observers. Ursula of the nineteenth century, though 
for the world she would not confess it, has cried over 
the sorrows of her namesake as often as over the 
endings of Miss Porter’s novels. From the flat slab 
ascribing to the deceased the charms and virtues of a 
legion of heroines she trains away the myrtles that 
would cover it ; and, among the earliest flowers of 
spring, is always promptly on hand to find a certain 
variety of sweet-smelling white violets, with purple 
hearts, that grow from the dust of “Ursula, mort. 
1729.” 

Next in the family line, comes Guy the second, the 
oldest son of Miles and Lydia. He may be seen in 
the chief wall space of the hall, wearing his British 
uniform — was a volunteer on Washington’s staff in the 
French and Indian war, and afterwards, as a Burgess, 
met together with his neighbors and kinsmen from the 
James, and voted to throw off the yoke of George III. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


9 


When the great struggle came, Guy Throckmorton’s 
purse was opened with a willing hand for the equip- 
ment of Virginia troops, and his oldest son, Miles, 
went to the war, in the personal charge of his father’s 
early friend, the Commander-in-Chief of the Revolu- 
tionary armies. Miles won distinction and lost a leg 
in the service of the new States. His son, again, was a 
modest country squire, a mighty fox-hunter, and a 
connoisseur in horses, for which, like old Randolph of 
Tuckahoe, he had stalls fit for a prince (so the coun- 
try people said), especial grooms, mahogany mangers, 
and other extravagant luxuries. 

The younger scions of this line, after the fashion of 
other Virginians of their class, married and intermar- 
ried till their genealogies are a mere maze of kinsfolk ; 
spread over the State; emigrated to distant States; 
and in every generation spent their money instead of 
saving it. 

Just before the war of secession, Richard Throck- 
morton, then a man of sixty-odd years of age, was, as 
I have said, in possession of the place. Ostensibly 
the head of the family, he was in reality at the beck 
and call of a parcel of women and lads. The house- 
hold, though all coming from a common stock, knew 
no relationship as near as that of the Colonel to his 
mother, a venerable lady who was at once the charm 
and consecration of their home. 

Twenty years or so before this time, had occurred 


IO 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


in the Colonel’s peaceful life an episode that, how- 
ever odd and in some respects improbable, was one of 
those actual romances that to certain families long 
rooted in our Southern soil are as much a part of 
family life as the ivy on their walls. Losing his older 
son and heir, Richard Throckmorton had concentrated 
all the devotion of a somewhat arbitrary and exacting 
nature upon his only other child, Philip, a winning, 
handsome fellow, flaxen-haired like his dead mother, 
blue-eyed, and fragile in his build, but possessed of a 
will as indomitable as his father’s. While absent at a 
Northern watering place, the young Virginian had met 
and loved and become engaged to a Cuban beauty. 
Far back in the annals of the house of Throckmorton, 
there had been a wild, black story of a young Virginia 
volunteer in the English wars against the Spanish, 
a great-grand-uncle of our Colonel Richard, betrayed 
through treachery, and coming to a dog’s death at the 
hands of a ship’s load of dagoes, who had captured 
him at sea. Hatred of everything Spanish was drunk 
in with mother’s milk thenceforth by Throckmortons. 
That Philip, the sole hope of his house, should delib- 
erately cast this drop of poison into the Colonel’s cup 
was unforgivable. There were stormy scenes, dark 
days at Flower de Hundred, ending in the defiant 
son’s departure from home. A year or two later came 
tidings fraught with bitter sorrow. Philip, himself 
hardly out of boyhood, had died of yellow fever in 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


II 


Jamaica, following his wife, a victim of the same dis- 
ease, and leaving to his father’s care an infant son. 
To receive the little one, dispatched on a trading 
schooner to a port on the Carolina coast, Colonel 
Throckmorton journeyed southward. The letters 
from an American Consul in Jamaica, informing him 
of his son’s death, had also prepared him for the 
arrival by the same opportunity, and under charge of 
the English nurse provided for his grandson, of the 
orphan child of another Throckmorton — Tom, the 
rolling stone of the family, a cousin who had been 
Philip’s playmate long ago, and had drifted to the 
West Indies never to return — Tom, who, leaving his 
wife and child in generous Philip’s home, had set off 
on a voyage to Texas in a ship which foundered at sea, 
and whose widow was soon swept away by the resist- 
less fever, having lived only long enough to commend 
her boy to Philip’s guardianship. The circumstances 
of the Colonel’s expedition to the coast ; the story of a 
shipwreck occurring before his anguished eyes, and of 
the two babies, sole survivors of that night of horror, 
found drifting in an open boat, alone, unharmed, next 
day ; the fate of the English nurse, cast drowned upon 
the shore ; the loss of certain valuable jewels, a minia- 
ture, and a letter written by Philip to his father, which 
the Colonel had anxiously hoped to find upon the per- 
son of the nurse — all this was whispered after nightfall 
in the chimney-corner of the mansion-house at Flower 


12 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


de Hundred, and formed the chief burden of planta- 
tion gossip in the negroes’ huts for years to come. 

But the Colonel, who had been accompanied on his 
journey by only a young man-servant, allowed no 
allusion to the circumstances of the affair to be ad- 
dressed to him. He had arrived at the plantation, 
bringing the two boys, to whom had been apportioned 
equal privileges — Philip’s son, Dick, the heir, a blond, 
clear-cut beauty like his father, — what the negroes 
called the “spit en image uv his daddy”— and Tom’s 
son Miles, the waif, dark-browed and passionate. The 
children had grown up in health and vigor undis- 
turbed ; it would have been hard to tell which of them 
was nearer the Colonel’s heart ; Miles, like his com- 
rade Dick, had called the master “gran’fazzer” as 
soon as he could lisp. The years that had elapsed 
since his fateful journey had left their mark upon 
Richard Throckmorton in other ways than by merely 
ageing him. One would, indeed, have hardly given 
him his years. Tall, erect, muscular, he was still 
the marked figure in any assemblage. His towering 
head, his eye bright and searching, suggested the 
haughty Dick Throckmorton as remembered by his 
' friends. But there was an almost pathetic appeal in 
the lines around his mouth. The expression of his 
face, now habitually gentle, was beautiful when 
lighted by a smile. The tones of his voice, always 
courtly, became tender when addressed to women, 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


13 


children, and things helpless, or in pain. The old 
intolerance of contradiction, obstinacy of prejudice, 
had gone out of him as the evil spirits of Holy 
Writ fled at the coming of the Lord. It was not 
certain whether he was most beloved by his little 
mother, by the younger women in her train, by the 
boys, or by his black people. He was an indulgent 
master. Sampson, the faithful New England over- 
seer, did not consider the Colonel’s lenient methods in 
dealing with his large, clamorous, and unreasoning 
train of dependents, wise ; he knew it was not profit- 
able to the estate. The only point in which he might 
justly be called exacting, was as to the care of horses. 
Brown Bess, whom he bestrode every day upon his 
rounds to see the farms, had a coat of chestnut satin, 
polished hoofs, and equipments of spotless nicety; 
and no stable boy was found who presumed to back 
her, saddled or otherwise; nor indeed would anybody 
else. That madcap Miles had ridden her up the front 
steps, once, and into the big hall, where my Lady 
stood on a square of Turkey carpet, arching her neck, 
nibbling sugar, and looking around for admiration 
from the ancestors in their frames, and the contem- 
poraries in the flesh who scolded and applauded in a 
breath. Miles had been impelled to this exploit by 
hearing from Cousin Polly how Miles of Queen Anne’s 
day, on completing the building of the hall, after the 
old one was burnt out, and before the furniture was 


14 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


replaced, had, for a wager, driven his chariot and four 
in at the front door, and safely turned them to go 
out ! The Colonel, who found all the women around 
this pair of trespassers, started to bestow a scolding 
on the lad. But there was something in the fearless 
gaze that met his own, the gallant poise of the sixteen- 
year-old upon the saddle, the flush of beautiful youth 
in the rascal’s merry face, that disarmed him. The 
lecture stuck in his throat, and Miles got off, scot free. 

“I wonder why the deuce Dick never thought of 
doing that,” the master murmured unconsciously to 
himself, as he went into the study, and sat down to 
his pipe. 

There was no doubt that, of the two, Miles was the 
more dashing, aggressive, and troublesome to manage. 
He had been in and out of scrapes from the moment 
he could toddle away from Mammy Judy’s apron- 
string. He had learned to handle a rod, to swim, to 
shoot, to wrestle, to climb trees after mistletoe and 
hawks’ nests, to row, to sail a cat-boat, by the time 
the Reverend Taliaferro Crabtree — a parchment-faced 
clergyman with a weak chest, engaged by Colonel 
Throckmorton to take charge of the lads’ education — 
had arrived upon the departure of their nursery gov- 
erness. This tutor was a relic of the sport-loving 
clergy of older times. Educated at Oxford, a series of 
reverses had robbed him of his fortune, and his health 
did not permit taking charge of a parish. So, in his 



4 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


15 


middle age, he had drifted into the snug harbor of 
Flower de Hundred, where it seemed likely he would 
pass the afternoon of life. His quarters were in an 
outbuilding over the school-room, whence on summer 
evenings might be heard to issue the doleful tootings 
of a flute. His possessions were limited to a case of 
books, a few suits of rusty black clothes, a couple of 
beautiful greyhounds styled Romeo and Juliet, and 
a brace of hawks, named Death and the Devil. For 
the parson’s mania was hawking, and he soon had his 
two pupils indoctrinated with the mysteries of that 
ancient craft. Their talk, out of school hours, was all 
of jesses and bewets, howet, howet and retrieve, mew 
and mewtings, creancing,and so on — to the distraction 
of the puzzled family. To gratify the old boy, 
Colonel Throckmorton gave him for his exclusive use a 
hunter which he proceeded to call Orthodoxy, and on 
which, with black coat-tails flapping, he would stoutly 
follow the hounds. Another sport introduced by him 
was archery — Mr. Crabtree’s father having in his youth 
twice won a silver arrow from the Hainault foresters 
at Fairlop Oak. He was kind-hearted but irascible, 
and, a fine scholar, easily lost patience with the ineffi- 
cient dawdling of beginners who failed to “see an inch 
beyond their noses, sir.’’ Their school-room was in 
“the office,’’ a gray, stucco-faced building where green- 
ish light strained through lilacs gone to wood in their 
old age around the windows, and overhead towered 


1 6 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

the shafts of great magnolias and pecan trees ; a still 
place, where no sounds came but those made by the 
bees and nesting birds, to whom Mr. Crabtree's juris- 
diction did not reach. Once, a fox ventured to the 
stone door-step of “the office,” and the lads held their 
breath in the hope of decoying her within, — but, one 
quick, intelligent glance at the situation, and she was 
off. Dick was for tracking her that day, and loosing 
the hounds after her on the morrow. But Miles, the 
truest lover of the hunt except the Colonel in their 
neighborhood, protested. “It’d be like riding after a 
man that had been to visit you, and robbing him,” he 
said, and Dick, on second thoughts, agreed. 

Miles’ accomplishments in the athletic and sporting 
line were at once the admiration and misery of Mr. 
Crabtree. The fellow had an audacious way of vault- 
ing out of the window when the tutor’s back was 
turned, and disappearing for the day. And, as the 
walls of “the office” were lined with old volumes bear- 
ing London imprint, and Mr. Crabtree, a genuine lover 
of by-gone literature, was no mean antiquarian on his 
own account, Miles found easy opportunities to make 
his exodus. Upon one of these occasions, when about 
thirteen years of age, he had gone tramping alone with 
his dogs over leagues of wood and marsh, carrying a 
heavy gun, and turning up at night with a bag of 
game that well-nigh won his pardon from the Colonel. 
But the offended Crabtree demanded and secured 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


17 


atonement in the shape of an afternoon spent by the 
truant indoors, next day, engaged in memorizing two 
lines of Virgil for each mile he had traversed during 
his escapade. Another time, when a young mare had 
just come home to the stables, and the Colonel had 
given orders that no one should back her until he him- 
self should have tested her notoriously bad temper, 
Miles effected one of his vanishing acts, and ere long 
were heard from the home paddock sounds that 
moved Dick, and his tutor too, irresistibly in that 
direction. Led out of her stall into the inclosure by 
a couple of negro boys running, dodging, dangling by 
her head, was seen the beautiful Haidee (those were 
still days when the cult of Byron flourished in the 
land). Watching his opportunity to spring upon her 
back, Miles, bareheaded, spurred, and jacketless, in- 
dulged in a hot struggle for mastery, during which he 
alternately lay with his cheek near the wilful crea- 
ture’s ear as she reared, or sat her, like falcon upon 
wrist, in her mad gallop about the field. The conflict 
over, Haidee, quivering and sweating, resigned herself. 
Dick, the darkies, and Parson Crabtree cheered lustily 
as Miles rode the noble creature, splashed with foam, 
fretting on the curb, but submissive, up and down till 
her lesson was complete. From that day forth she 
loved him, and, to him only, was like a lamb. Poor 
Haidee ! She was shot under Miles at the battle of 
Seven Pines, and the young captain kissed her be- 


1 8 FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 

tween the eyes, as they turned on him glazed in death. 
In ’62, she was well advanced in years, but had kept 
her spirit to the last. 

People often said the Colonel might have done bet- 
ter with Miles by exacting stricter obedience from his 
reckless youth. It is doubtful whether the result of 
his education would in that case have been more satis- 
factory. For love of his benefactor the boy would 
have submitted to any punishment. But spite of self- 
reproach and genuine penitence, there was that in his 
hot blood that must needs work out or choke him. 
At a kind word or a caress from one he held dear he 
would melt like wax ; but there were moments when a 
demon of obstinacy, of rebellion against authority and 
conventionalities, of desperate longing to be free from 
rules of all kinds, clutched and clung to him like the 
old man of the sea. The wild untrammeled ways of 
the Virginia plantation suited him, in that he could 
always put spurs to horse and ride off into the coun- 
try, or, loosing the sail of his boat, could court the 
capricious winds of the lower James until his mood 
was past. Thanks to his outdoor life, his physical 
development kept pace with the Throckmorton stature 
early attained by Miles, who at twenty stood six-feet 
.two in his stockings, and was broad of shoulder and 
free of superfluous flesh as an athlete trained in our 
modern colleges for champion’s work. It was a saying 
among visitors and servants of the house that Miles 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


*9 


had grown up to resemble his namesake the Knight of 
the Golden Horseshoe. He was wonderfully good to 
look at, his complexion a clear olive mantling with 
rich crimson upon the cheeks, a little brown mustache 
upon his short upper lip, his eyes dark and lustrous 
under long lashes, his features strong and shapely. 
But the Colonel and others of the household — Ursula, 
certainly — thought their Miles had the advantage in 
manliness of bearing over that faineant with the velvet 
coat and Mechlin steinkirk, as Kneller painted him. 

Dick’s love for Miles was a proverb in the house- 
hold. Since, in their beds, yet standing side by side 
in the nursery on the ground floor, Mammy Judy had 
coaxed them to keep still by stories of Tarlton’s 
horses stabled in this very room and leaving their 
hoof marks on the wainscoting, the boys had shared 
everything in common. Dick had a gentle nature, 
and a deprecating, almost timid appeal in his manner 
for the good-will of his friends. He was slower of 
speech, and more cautious in action than his cousin. 
A trifle undersized, his looks did not quite realize the 
waxen-tinted promise of his beautiful babyhood ; but 
he was well-made, active, and vigorous, with an air of 
distinction and scholarly refinement. It had been 
something of an effort for him to keep up with Miles 
in athletic exercise; but Miles would never let him 
stay behind, and so, as best he could, Dick scrambled 
after. From Parson Crabtree he had imbibed an 


20 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


excellent taste in literature, and as a classic had real- 
ized his tutor’s fondest hopes. Sampson, the overseer, 
indorsed him as having “the makings in him of a first- 
class farmer, sir,” and high and low about the planta- 
tion had a kind word for Dick. 

One person, and she the true power behind the 
throne, thought the fulfillment of Dick’s early man- 
hood left nothing to be desired. This was his little 
great-grandmother. A pet surprise for strangers arriv- 
ing at the house was the appearance on the threshold, 
key-basket on arm and a smile of sweetest welcome in 
her forget-me-not blue eyes, of the fairy chatelaine , 
the master’s mother, scarce sixteen years his senior. 

All of “Madam’’ Throckmorton’s (as the Colonel 
chose to call her) lovely life after the first fifteen 
years, had been passed at Flower de Hundred. 
When she came there as a school-girl wife, and was 
left in charge of the great establishment while her 
burly lord rode away around his farms, or followed the 
hounds or haunted his famous stables, the old servants 
did not allow her much care about the housekeeping. 
So, varied with her visits and ministrations in the 
quarter, her Sunday-schools and church work, she took 
up the ornamental gardening of the place. Her hand 
had planted the shrubs and flowering trees that in the 
spring made of Flower de Hundred a double garden — 
half hanging in the air, half under foot. Scattered 
in clumps about the lawns, between long-lived forest 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


21 


trees and skyward reaching magnolias, trunks and 
boughs wrapped in ivy, and in season unfolding hun- 
dreds of cream-petaled censers, she had set out a wide 
variety of shrubbery that a few years of such sun and 
air nurture to fullest bloom. 

Locusts, horse-chestnuts, paulonias, fringe and 
smoke trees, crape-myrtles, pomegranates, lilacs, dog* 
wood and snowball, syringa and calycanthus bushes, 
were linked to one another by garlands of honey- 
suckle, cream and coral, running roses, wistaria, clem- 
atis, and jasmine. In the borders on either side of 
box-hedges cut into queer shapes and arches, were 
blossoms for every month — from February’s snow-drop 
to April’s tulip “robed in the purple of the Caesars” ; 
wall-flowers, orange and jet, streaked, luscious and 
splendid, with lilies of the valley into whose green 
sheaths how many a slim white hand, now dust, has 
plunged to find the first bells of the year; and so to the 
roses of June — and on, still, until late December’s chrys- 
anthemums. In the garden proper, the prim design for 
which, with an Englishman to lay it out, had been 
brought over in one of the Throckmorton ships, A.D. 
1760, grew a riot of the old-fashioned self-sowing flow- 
ers, the delight of artists and novel-writers, but the 
torment of a horticulturist of earnest purpose. The 
English primroses, for instance, spread so that there 
was no keeping them in bounds, and poppies were a 
weed. To look on them was a feast of color, but they 


22 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


cost the little Madam many a sigh. To keep down 
such interlopers, to train, to graft, to make experi- 
ments with newer seeds and cuttings, would furnish 
the dear lady sufficient pastime for the remainder of 
her days. Excepting for the annual journey to the 
'‘Springs,” undertaken in her own equipage and more 
by way of keeping up the tradition of the family than 
for love of it, her days had been spent amid the simple 
occupations of Flower de Hundred. Her tiny figure, 
clad in mild weather always in white, might still be 
seen flitting about the box-walks like a familiar sprite, 
sometimes carrying a lap-full of rose-leaves plucked to 
make scent bags for the household linen or to flavor 
a confection of which she kept the sugared secret ; or 
again, her arms full of long flowering sprays of which 
her eye alone had caught the matin loveliness. 

A daily task at Flower de Hundred was the ar- 
rangement by the ladies of the family of cut flowers, 
in trays and baskets, more or less profuse according to 
the season, sent in by the gardener directly after 
breakfast. No hour in summer days was pleasanter 
among the twenty-four, — so thought idle males and 
staying company, — than that lounged away in the 
entry, leading from the main building to the visitors’ 
wing, watching white fingers at this fragrant task. 
Through many open doors and windows floated into 
the matted corridor — with its cane-seat chairs and 
chintz lounges, the covers laundered to smell of grass 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


2 3 


and clover, its racks of guns and rods, and its Barto- 
lozzi prints — the softened sounds of distant farm 
activity, on the languid breath of a summer air borne 
down by a weight of sweets. Madam Throckmorton, 
the head of a bevy of volunteers, sat at a table piled 
high with blossoms, her own hands busied, directing 
here, suggesting there, bestowing a smile of approval on 
completed work. Little Ursula was there, her chest- 
nut mane knotted up, her brown face moist and flushed 
from frequent dives into the sunshine to dispute with 
the butterflies some flower left on its stalk, that 
seemed to her the one thing needful to complete the 
filling of her India bowl, — Mademoiselle, Ursula’s fat 
French governess, an exquisite adept in floral combina- 
tions, — Dick, at grandmamma’s side, talking with her 
about a successful graft long desired by both enthusi- 
asts, — the usual array of pretty cousins in white muslin, 
and cavaliers in snowy jeans, — Miles, in his disreputa- 
ble velveteens, standing gun in hand (out of season), 
his dogs impatient at his knees, in the doorway 
against a background of ivied wall in an angle of the 
wing, — and Cousin Polly — and lastly, Bonnibel! 

Yes, Dick was grandmamma’s pet, and no wonder. 
More than any other member of the household he 
shared her tastes. As soon as he was strong enough 
to stray after the little lady in her horticultural pur- 
suits, he became her shadow, while poor Miles, save 
on one occasion when he worked havoc with a row of 


24 


FLOWER BE HUNDRED . 


Dutch bulbs, imported at great expense, kept a re- 
spectful distance from trowels, water-pots, and weed- 
baskets. Miles would supply little Madam with par- 
tridges and ducks, and did not always forget to bring 
home strange orchids from the marsh, or fungi from 
the woods. And it was his boast, that grandmamma, 
ever timid on the water, would sometimes trust herself 
to his boat for a row at sunset on the crimsoned river 
near the wharf, or threading the silver inlets where the 
tide rose in the marsh. But Dick never forgot her, 
or let her want for anything he could supply. He 
would go with her among the negro-cabins, was her 
almoner, helped in her Sunday classes, and, during her 
hour for repose in the daytime, would sit beside her 
couch and read aloud — oftenest from her favorite 
“Keble’s Christian Year/’ After the old lady became a 
little fearful of the spirited horses Colonel Throckmor- 
ton invariably drove, and in fact wearied of any expe- 
dition far from the mansion-house, Dick rigged up for 
her a donkey-chair, and trained for it a comical little 
brute, who kept demurely on the walk, well aware what 
was in store for him if he set a hoof upon the borders. 
Of her equipage the attendant was a small darkey 
known as Puck, chubby and round-eyed and portent- 
ously solemn, who walked beside the donkey’s head 
with a distinct recognition of the fact that Destiny 
had singled him out thus early in life for the bestowal 
of her richest guerdon. Grandmamma never tired of 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


25 


extolling Dick’s thoughtfulness in devising this addi- 
tion to her comfort, or of declaring her own renewed 
enjoyment of the blessings of her life, because of it. 

Whoever lay a-bed at Flower de Hundred in the 
morning, the Colonel was always up and in the saddle, 
and “ole Miss” — as the servants invariably call the 
doyenne of a Virginia family — was in the dining-room 
waiting for her congregation to assemble for morning 
prayers. Generally speaking, it was the honest aim of 
the household to forsake delicious turning on downy 
pillows, under counterpanes of Madam’s handiwork, 
and to rally around the sweet-voiced bit of Dresden 
china, who, in her crisp gown and cap and kerchief, sat 
and knelt in the shade of the bowed shutters to read a 
chapter and a collect. Sometimes, human nature — ■ 
really entitled to special dispensation in the snare 
of a Flower de Hundred bed — proved recalcitrant, and 
the worshipers, if they did not sneak in barely in 
time to drop on their knees for the last amen, and then 
rise up looking virtuous— succeeded only in getting 
downstairs for the second round of breakfast batter- 
cakes. Once, it is chronicled, failing all other disci- 
ples, “ole Miss’’ read prayers for an audience consist- 
ing of Dick, Phoebe (the coal black shepherdess, a 
mountain of fat wearing a sunbonnet), a pet lamb who 
followed Phoebe everywhere, two hounds, a collie, and 
an Angora cat. An oddly assorted gathering in the 
morning sunshine of that stately room, its paneled 


2 6 


FI 0 WER DE HUNDRED . 


walls hung with triple rows of ancient portraits, the 
buffet piled with ancestral silver, the green dragon jars 
on the mantel stuffed with lavender and satin-leafed 
honesty, — and over them the convex mirror, with brass 
chains and eagles, to peep into which Colonial Miss 
Bettys and Miss Babs had so often stood on tiptoe ! 


CHAPTER II. 


Growing up in the peaceful atmosphere of the 
home one day to be his own, it did not occur to young 
Richard Throckmorton that a change of any sort could 
be desirable. But when he and Miles were about nine- 
teen, there came, without warning, into their lives an 
element as indispensable to the period of hope and 
illusion, as balmy spring to early buds that shake out 
from their woolly covers into leaves having form and 
substance. 

Once or twice during their childhood had arrived for 
a visit to the plantation a certain “Cousin Julia Leigh,” 
*of Maryland, born a Throckmorton, bringing with her 
a slim, pale little person with reddish hair, whom the 
boys endured politely but failed to find attractive. 
Later, when their orphan cousin Ursula was taken by 
the good Colonel into his fold to live, the doubters con- 
sented — first through pity for the lonely little brown- 
eyed stranger, and then because of her willingness to 
serve as chorus, retriever, and general utility woman — 
to believe that a girl may have her values. Ursula, 
dubbed “Nutty” from the Colonel’s declaration that 
she was a veritable “Nut-brown Mayde,” felt con- 
vinced that the companionship of the boys, next to 
27 


28 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


that of Cousin Richard, was the greatest privilege of 
life. She was fond of both of them, but Miles, hav- 
ing once rescued her from an alarming peril when she 
was seven, he fourteen, had won her enthusiastic devo- 
tion. Nutty had been leaning out of one of the upper 
windows looking into a bird’s nest in the vines on the 
house wall underneath, when she lost her balance and 
fell out, her frock catching on a projecting bough of 
robust growth that held her there till Miles, with a 
gardener’s ladder, could come to her relief. It was 
Miles, also, who, finding her with a squirrel’s brush 
pinned in her cap, perched on one of the bareback 
horses led by a negro boy to water, took Nutty forth- 
with to the home paddock, and gave her a first lesson 
in riding on a saddle. How often, after that, had she 
enjoyed a gallop at his side over the sandy roads of the 
pine-woods, fast as thoroughbreds could carry them, 
manes flying, her hair flying, their horses, neck-to-neck, 
straining through the resin-scented air, their heart- 
beats answering to the panting of their steeds ! 

Dick was always ready to help Ursula out with the 
mathematics and Latin acquired from Mr. Crabtree, 
while her governess, in return, gave lessons in French 
to the young gentlemen. Nutty was grateful to Dick 
for invariable kindness, but would have gone through 
fire and water to be snubbed by Miles. She was a 
loving, jealous, passionate little creature, like a prickly 
pear to the people who did not understand her, prefer- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


29 


ring boys’ sports to those suitable to her sex and condi- 
tion ; and, having made up her mind she could not be 
a beauty, she cared nothing for the accomplishments 
and graces poor Mademoiselle discoursed upon from 
morning until night. Indeed, it was only through in- 
voking the aid of the Colonel, or, indirectly, of Mon- 
sieur Miles, that the governess induced her even to at- 
tempt certain necessary tasks. The little great-grand- 
mamma looked upon Ursula as an astonishing freak in 
the family annals, a poor, dear, undisciplined child, 
whom God in his good time would fashion anew into 
resemblance of other people. The Reverend Talia- 
ferro Crabtree, whom she had baited and worried and 
defied during the lessons he was unfortunate enough 
to have to bestow on her — well, it might be too much 
to say that he hated Ursula, but that would be very 
near the truth ! 

At thirteen, to the relief of all implicated, Miss 
Nutty showed symptoms of reform in some trying 
peculiarities. From the doubling of her plait of 
chestnut hair under a bow of ribbon, and the overhear- 
ing by her of somebody’s casual remark that Ursula’s 
skin was beginning to clear up, dated her visible at- 
tempt to enroll herself among the members of society 
who confess to a regard for conventionalities. 

And, at this epoch, Dick and Miles being at home, 
just returned from travel, the elastic walls of Flower 
de Hundred stretched for another inmate. 


30 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

Nutty thought it a sad but rather agreeable story 
she had been told, of the death, in a steeple-chase for 
gentlemen riders, of Cousin Julia Leigh’s good-for- 
nothing husband so soon after Cousin Julia herself 
had laid down a weary life, begun under the bright- 
est auspices of health and wealth — and how it had all 
been owing to poor Beverley Leigh’s inability to keep 
from drinking. 

And now here was another solitary maiden to be 
provided with a home and protectors, although, said 
Cousin Polly, “Bev Leigh had had the grace to leave 
her enough to live upon.” The boys, remembering 
little Amabel’s pasty complexion and lank red hair, 
exchanged secret expressions of dread lest grandfather 
should consider himself obliged to ask her to the plan- 
tation for a visit. They were filled with alarm, when, 
after reading a second time the letter that brought 
him this woeful news, and sighing deeply thrice, the 
Colonel announced to his little mother that he reck- 
oned he’d take the boat to Richmond on the mor- 
row, and run over to Baltimore and look the poor 
child up. A few days later, the same boat, touching 
at Flower de Hundred wharf, deposited the returning 
master, and, clinging to his arm, was — Bonnibel ! 

Bell, or Bonnibel, always — her baptismal name was 
never heard. 

Dick, who was in waiting to receive the party, 
caught one glimpse of her, as with a little petulant 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


31 


movement she threw aside her mourning veil — and 
succumbed upon the spot. “Radiant” was the first 
word that occurred to one on looking upon her 
beauty. Hers was the perfection of blond prettiness, 
with a mouth like Cupid’s bow, a tiny tip-tilted nose, 
eyes gold-brown to match her hair, a color like crushed 
roses on her cheeks. She was, at nineteen, slender yet 
fully developed, and her walk and carriage suggested 
the women of tropic countries trained to carry baskets 
of fruit upon their heads — a bearing more according to 
the ideal of the word queenly than that of any actual 
royalty we have seen in modern times. 

This young lady was under no illusions as to the 
impression she was making upon her relatives, when, 
assembled around the bounteous luncheon-table, they 
took her measure with the eye. So accustomed was 
she to unconditional surrender, that victory did not 
elate unduly. In those days, a Southern beauty 
tripped through life on a path strewn with roses, 
hearts, and darts. All men became Sir Calidores in 
her behalf. Since her mother’s death a year before, 
Bell had been obliged to take the head of her father’s 
table, and, spite of the cloud of sadness veiling it, her 
manner was charmingly easy and cordial. Dick could 
not understand why, though feeling awkward and dull 
before she spoke to him, afterwards he was conscious 
of being at his best. The courtly old Colonel de- 
clared it renewed his youth, egad, to have such a 


3 * 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


stunning young woman in the house. Grandmamma 
cooed over her like a wood-pigeon to its young. 
Nutty, who had had her breath taken away by this 
brilliant vision, struck colors on the spot, and wor- 
shiped Bell with the ardor that characterized all of 
the poor child’s likes and dislikes. And Miles — 

He had been shooting, and returned late in the 
afternoon when the slanting sun lit up the western 
windows of the wing. Ursula ran to meet him, and 
chattered of this wondrous visitor that had dawned 
upon their home. Miles, discrediting her as a roman- 
cer, was turning up the box-walk that led to the back 
door, when Nutty made a sign, and whispered: 
“Hush! She doesn’t see us. Look at the Red Room 
window. She is there.” 

A house-wall thick with layers of glossy leaves, up 
which a banksia rose had clambered, throwing out long 
shoots, each bearing a multitude of tiny yellow florets, 
and these branches tangled with honeysuckle in full 
bloom. A girl leans out of a casement to taste the 
fragrance of the air. She is robed in some half-trans- 
parent white stuff, and her hair, loosed from the comb, 
falls in a glittering stream over one shoulder. She 
succeeds in breaking a stubborn branch of the baby 
roses, and at the movement some ruby-throated hum- 
ming birds are dislodged from their honeysuckle, and, 
like flying jewels, scatter in search of safety. “Heav- 
ens! how lovely it all is!” speaks the sweetest voice 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


33 


Miles ever heard. And then the vision disappears, 
and for him the world is left in darkness. 

“Yes, that is Bonnibel,” Nutty said, with proprie- 
tary pride; “I knew you’d be surprised.” 

“Surprised is no word for it,” cried Miles. “She is 
an angel. I’ll be hanged, Nutty, if I know where I 
stand. I’m struck all of a heap.” 

“Boys are so foolish,” answered Nutty sapiently. 
“Now there is Dick, who is just as bad.” 

“Dick! — ” said Miles, then stopped, and for want 
of a better method of expressing himself, repeated 
“Dick!” 

“Yes, indeed. When she spoke to Dick at lunch- 
eon, it was too ridiculous to see how pleased he 
looked. He simpered. Cousin Richard, too, seemed 
when he took her into the dining-room as if he were 
going to dance in a minuet. Perhaps we’ll all settle 
down by to-morrow, but to-day we’re really absurd.” 

“Dick! — ” said Miles, once more; then, shouldering 
his gun and tossing his bag to Nutty, he stalked 
away. 

To introduce you in due chronological order to the 
household at Flower de Hundred, I should certainly not 
have left Cousin Polly to the last of the family. She 
was a small, bright-eyed lady of indefatigable activity in 
sacrificing herself for the good of others ; merry, witty, 

tender; a niece of the little grandmother, who, in the 
3 


34 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


old lady’s advancing years, had come to live altogether 
at the plantation. In her trig person she embodied 
the several functions of housekeeper, nurse, confi- 
dante, missionary, parish-clerk, queen of the poultry- 
yard, and genealogist. She was the repertory of the 
legends of the house; could tell to a scalp the set- 
tlers killed here, in the Indian massacre of 1622; and 
Miles, having once found an arrow-head, oddly stained, 
asked her with a grave face to name the particular 
F. F. V. whose blood had left that mark! Standing, 
for she had rarely time to sit, in the best spare bed- 
room, she would, while straightening a curtain or pat- 
ting a pillow, narrate how my Lord Cornwallis, cross- 
ing the river hereabout with his army on the march to 
Yorktown, snatched a night’s rest in this mahogany 
four-poster — which later was slept in, during his visit 
to Flower de Hundred, by the gallant Marquis de 
Chastellux. “The old place was raided, my dears,” 
she would go on to say, “by Major-General Phillips, 
whose men destroyed crops, killed cows, stole horses, 
and even broke furniture and china; the British 
seemed to feel peculiar virulence against your great- 
great-grandfather, Richard, because, I suppose, they 
expected to find him a Tory. But brothers mustn’t 
bear malice, must they, when their fight is done? 
Tarlton’s troopers were the worst. So great was the 
dread of them in the country, old Mrs. Throckmorton 
decided to fly to Richmond for protection, and, to 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


35 


avoid pursuit, had her four coach-horses shod with the 
shoes reversed, so their tracks might point the other 
way. Tarlton’s men came like a whirlwind, devoured 
her provisions, killed her stock, and sacked the wine- 
cellar. Why, they tied the bottles of old Madeira in ' 
festoons around their horses’ necks, and rode off sing- 
ing ! Pretty, this knot-work, isn’t it ! Dear ‘ole 
Miss’ made it with her blessed little hands. It was 
after that, Major Miles Throckmorton built the stone 
chamber underground, communicating by the secret 
passage with the well. He’d be bound, I’ve heard he 
said, another Revolution wouldn’t find him unpre- 
pared with a place to hide valuables in, and people 
too, in case of a surprise.” 

The boys and Nutty knew the stone chamber as a 
famous play-room, having descended to it many a time 
by way of the old dry well in an outbuilding, sliding on 
ropes, and fortifying themselves in imagination against 
Indians and bloody Britons. 

“Take care, Dick, how you handle that cup and 
saucer on the mantel-piece. Not only because it’s 
Spode, which they do say people are beginning to 
set store by, nowadays; but it was a present t6 Mrs. 
Miles Throckmorton from Mrs. General Washington, 
whose first husband was a connection of the family. 
Old Lady Miles would have her say about everything, 
and she affronted Mrs. Washington by giving some 
plain advice as to the management of young Mr. 


3 ^ 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Jacky Custis. There was quite a tiff between the 
ladies, I am told, and this was a token of forgiveness 
when they made it up. Dear knows Mrs. Washington 
was strict enough with her grandchildren, whatever 
she may have been with her own children. The tales 
Cousin Clarissa Dandridge used to tell about the way 
Nelly Custis was made to practice, and work on her 
sampler! Cousin Clarissa staid a great deal at Mount 
Vernon.” 

“ ‘Who’s that old codger on pink paper,’ did you say, 
Miles?” the good lady would resume. “Fie, child, 
that’s a St. Memin of your great-granduncle Bland 
Willoughby, one of the foremost gentlemen of his day. 
He married three times, — his first was Abigail Carter 
of Rose Hill, his second Lucy Carrington of the 
Perch — no, Lucy must have been his third — surely 
Edmonia Christian was the mother of Randolph and 
Tarmesia — well, well, I wonder I’ve forgotten a thing 
like that — I must be in my second childhood, I 
declare.” 

“I know,” said Nutty, ‘‘we’ve been in the graveyard, 
scraping the lichens off his tomb ; Abigail lies on his 
right, Lucy on his left, and I suppose they didn’t 
know exactly what to do with Edmonia, so she’s across 
his feet. Dick translated his inscription, and it says, 
‘In all he had three and twenty children, on whose 
education he expended liberal sums of money.’ In 
qua — erudienda — vim — maximam — ” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


37 


“Good for Nutty!” cried out Miles. “But, I say, 
what a lot of young ’uns to buy Latin grammars for.” 

“What bothers me,” went on Nutty, with a 
thoughtful air, “is what he will do about his wives 
on the Resurrection morn — I mean the one that’s got 
to go behind the others — I should think her feelings 
would be hurt to have to tag like that.” 

“Children !” said Cousin Polly, with a shocked face. 
She scarcely knew whether she disapproved the 
more of a light speech on the subject of man’s last 
arising, or of levity about the family in the past. 
The latter offense was at Flower de Hundred quite on 
a par with the depravity of Sydney Smith’s man who 
spoke disrespectfully of the equator. 

“Indeed, indeed, I wasn’t making fun,” pleaded 

Nutty, in distress. To her this cult of ancestors was 

intensely real and absorbing. But the boys, during a 

discussion of its tenets, were apt to be as restless as 

young colts. 

# 

A member of the family in all but ties of blood was 
Saul the butler, of a type once everywhere found in 
our Southern homes. He was a lean old darkey, with 
white hair fringing a bald head like a polished cocoa- 
nut. His wrinkled face could beam with good nature, 
but when on duty wore an expression of determined 
dignity. His bow and greetingwere those of the ideal 
aristocrat. He was self-willed, humble, kindly, iras- 


38 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


cible, tenacious of the honor of the house to an extraor- 
dinary degree. “Roi ne puis — Prince je daigne — 
Throckmorton suis,” was his version of an ancient 
motto. Born and bred on this plantation, as his father 
had been before him, he had no ambition beyond its 
limits; and to train up his descendants in the second 
and third generation to adopt his methods and no 
others, closed the perspective of his life. 

Saul, in a spotless jacket of white linen, a long 
white apron, and a silver salver in his hand, standing 
behind his mistress’s chair at table, was as much a part 
of Flower de Hundred as the lintels of the door. 
Thus posted, he kept watch over the movements of 
two younger men, and of the several little myrmidons 
always in training at the “ gret Hus.” The old 
man’s way of cleaning silver — of folding napkins — of 
carving bouquets from turnips, beets, and carrots — of 
imparting polish to his glass and mahogany — of com- 
pounding juleps, egg-nogs, and sangaree — were models 
to the county. No hand but his touched the keys of 
sideboard or wine-cellar. No hand but his presumed 
to draw out the chair for “Mistis” to be seated. 
There was never unseemly haste about his movements. 
Watching him prepare the table for a meal by polish- 
ing the already speckless top, one felt vaguely that 
Time might as well stand still until Uncle Saul felt 
disposed to lay the cloth. The Colonel’s playmate in 
childhood, he had some inclination to tyrannize over 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


39 


his master in minor things. But for his tiny mistress, 
his veneration knew no bounds. 

j Saul’s daughter, Phyllis, Madam’s own maid, was a 
portly, comfortable body, always seen dressed in pink 
or blue prints, while the others were content with 
domestic cottons manufactured on the quarter looms. 
Phyllis tied her head handkerchief in a huge butter- 
fly bow, and wore around her neck a string of real 
gold beads, which, with the distinction of having 
buried four husbands, won her the leading place in 
plantation upper circles. A bed-room “made up” by 
Phyllis was a bower of bliss and cleanliness. Three or 
four times a day she would come in to see that hot 
water, cold water, fresh logs of wood, clean-swept 
hearths, window-shades at the angle proper for ven- 
tilation, abundant towels, and flowers newly picked for 
the vases, were not lacking to one’s needs. Service 
like hers was the only approximation ever known in 
America to the consideration for the comfort of the 
guest seen in English houses. The maids trained by 
Phyllis are, to-day, the mothers of self-assertive f reed- 
men, who jostle white people out of place, wear pinces - 
nez in the cornfields, and travel with “gripsacks” and 
high hats, demanding for themselves in our Southern 
States far more of social consideration than the peas- 
ant classes of any other nation upon earth either 
receive or expect. 


40 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


The chef was Duke, whose father had let his Eli- 
jah’s mantle fall upon his shoulders. For thirty years 
before the war broke out, Duke had lived among the 
saucepans at Flower de Hundred coveting no change. 
He was fat and timid, and having once made up his 
mind to the great enterprise of going down in the 
boat to visit the quiet burgh of Norfolk, had spent the 
night there, returning next day in unrestrained disgust 
at the manners and customs of the outer world, and 
had never gone away again. He was an artist of the 
class that has given the stamp of excellence to South- 
ern cookery. Under him worked bread-cooks, vegeta- 
ble-cooks, pastry-cooks ; and the materials upon which 
his skill was exerted were principally supplied by 
Nature’s bounty to the estate. Home-bred hams and 
mutton were supplemented by fish from the neigh- 
boring waters, which furnished also oysters, crabs, and 
terrapin — while poultry and game were equally abun- 
dant. People who gathered around the . Flower de 
Hundred board for dinner resigned themselves to 
temptations of the palate that pleased none more 
than the servitors in ceaseless progress around it with 
their offerings. 

The dinner over, it was the custom to remove the 
cloth and place on the mahogany a fresh and bewil- 
dering array of sweets served in dishes of silver, porce- 
lain or cut glass, with decanters in silver coasters that 
in the circuit of the table were pushed from guest to 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


41 


guest. To enumerate the creams, sherbets, conserves, 
jellies in tall glasses such as the Stork put before the 
Fox, “quire-of-paper pancakes,” “marguerites,” what 
not? — the names elude me — one must refer to some 
old-time book of cookery ; for during the century 
neither recipes nor methods in service had known 
change at Flower de Hundred. 

At breakfast, the guest not to the manner born was 
most apt to be astonished by the variety of hot 
breads (again, for nomenclature, the reader is referred 
to higher authorities). “Cole bread?” said the colored 
folks. “Wha* anybody wan’ cole bread fur? On y po’ 
white trash eat sich stuff.” 

And now, from a picture that seeks truthfully to 
reproduce the days that are no more, I must not 
omit a glance at the general relation, to the families 
of their owners, of the negroes of old Virginia homes. 
From even the most thoroughly trained among them, 
it was useless to expect an absence of visible interest 
in the affairs of the Great House. At table, the hon- 
est Diggorys were apt to enjoy unrebuked not only 
“Old Grouse in the gun room,” but all its congeners. 
At the first ripple of merriment among the guests, 
there would be a sympathetic flash of ivories and of 
eyeballs from behind their chairs. The negroes dearly 
loved “company,” and worked better when houses 
were full to overflowing. “Allers glad to see quality 


42 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


a-comin’, and de jelly-bag a hangin’ on de nail,” was 
an oft-repeated saying. When one visited the quarter, 
it was to find the same welcome, infused with the 
same sense of ownership in the arrival. It was always 
expected that visitors would take an early opportu- 
nity to make the rounds of the cabins, neatly swept 
and garnished, and divided by a path of sun-baked 
earth. Here would be found the women, the weaker 
ones serving as nurses to the old crones and babies, 
the stronger engaged in spinning, carding, weaving, 
knitting garments for the rest. Under foot rolled 
bright-eyed pickaninnies; in the doorways, patient 
patriarchs sat with heads like bolls of ripe cotton, sun- 
ning themselves, leaning upon their staffs, and waiting 
for the summons of old Time. Nowhere was with- 
held the smile, the bow, the curtsey, the cheerful 
“Howdye Marse,” or “Howdye Mistis,” in answer to 
the greeting of the guest. If this was the smooth side 
of slavery, it was a common sight. The seamy side 
showed occasional abuses, but most of all the woeful 
wrong to the masters themselves of the slave-holding 
habit. Here, taking what I have portrayed as an 
example, was a race of conscientious men full of a 
high sense of personal honor and responsibility to 
God ; here were unselfish and helpful women ; a 
minority of intelligence and capacity, surrounded and 
isolated by masses of ignorant peasants. The 
blacks, whatever their external polish, were ready at 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


43 


a hint to relapse into the barbarous habits and beliefs 
of their African ancestors, some of the most decent 
and pious among them stealing off after nightfall for 
weird dance and heathenish incantation. Too many 
of them were so characterized by sensuality, so habitu- 
ated to the vices of the untruthful, so steeped in the 
cunning with which the servile class everywhere con- 
tends against its rulers, so shut off from the sense of 
accountability and duty, that many results a stranger 
and a philanthropist considered reasonably to be hoped 
for in controlling such a force were by their masters 
unattainable and had ceased to be attempted. As 
for the matter of personal cruelty, rarely heard of in 
such a home as I describe, it was the habit of a tyrant 
born, not made by circumstance. And with this 
picture of life, as life was on the Throckmorton plan- 
tation, it must be owned that these black-skinned 
peasants, laughing, singing, dancing Obi dances when 
their work was done on the grassy slopes of a fertile 
land of which each had his little share, were better off 
than the teeming throngs of whites in the London 
slums, or of abject Orientals under European heels. 
Certainly their condition was far in advance of that of 
African negroes anywhere else in subjugation; and 
there was rarely among them any personal sense of 
wrong. 

Nevertheless, and although the slave of America, 
liable to an involuntary change of master, was under 


44 


FLOWER BE HUNDRED. 


the protection of law, and entitled to all the rights of 
the person consistent with subjection to direction 
and control in daily toil, the system was altogether 
wretched. It hampered the development of the 
South, as if society were wrapped in an anaconda’s 
folds. And a crying shame it was that so rich and 
generous a portion of the American continent should 
be thus withheld from the progress with which the 
modern world was advancing to general enlighten- 
ment. The highest civilization is reached only where 
there is absolute equality before the law of rights of 
every kind, and possibility of equal actual attainment. 

The summer before Bonnibel came, Dick and Miles 
and Parson Crabtree had been sent by the liberal Colo- 
nel to make the then unusual tour of Europe. On 
their return in the autumn to the University, Dick 
was surprised to find Miles throwing himself with zeal 
into studies hitherto neglected, and bending all his 
energies to secure the degree of Master of Arts, with 
which not more than one of a hundred students leaves 
the institution founded by Jefferson and sustaining 
worthily the high standard of scholarship it from the 
first assumed. Theretofore one of the wild blades of 
the University, Miles had settled down to be a scholar, 
accomplishing by his marvelous quickness of mind and 
a retentive memory what the plodders had been work- 
ing up to since the day of entrance. Dick did not 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


45 


know of a conversation between Miles and Bonnibel, 
when she, without thought of consequences, had said 
she might fancy, but would never choose for a com- 
rade in life, a mere idler and ignorant roisterer like too 
many of the youths of their acquaintance. And, when 
the two young men came home for the Christmas 
holidays, Miles astonished the household as much as 
he had Dick. He was quiet, reserved, withdrawing 
himself from the family gatherings, and given to 
consulting Mr. Crabtree about books over which he 
wasted midnight oil. When he refused to head a 
coon hunt, “Yaller Jock,” the huntsman, was greatly 
taken aback. And when he declined to taste Uncle 
Saul’s apple-toddy, that functionary went out af- 
fronted, and told the tale to old nurse Judy, who, too 
obese to leave the chimney corner of her cabin, shook 
her head, and “spicioned” Marse Miles had got relig- 
ion, bless his heart. 

We come now to the season of 1859, when, at the 
old homestead, all thoughts were centered upon the ap- 
proaching graduation of the lads, and the probabilities 
that Miles would — Dick being certain of his share — 
bring home college honors. It was the week of the 
final exercises at the University, and the Colonel, de- 
tained at Flower de Hundred by a slight touch of his 
enemy, the gout, sat in his chair wondering why he 
had not received the usual weekly letter from his boys. 
However, they were due at home that day by the 


46 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


down boat, and soon the old house that missed them 
sorely, would be full of them ; a month or so of holi- 
day, and they would begin to think of life in earnest. 
Dick would take hold of the old place, of course; 
there was care enough for him in its broad acres, and 
already the youngster had begun to plan costly im- 
provements, with Sampson to back him up. Miles 
talked of reading law with Lawyer Willis, their neigh- 
bor at Werowocomico, but, all the same, he could live 
at home and begin farming Timberneck, an estate 
some eight miles distant devised to his adopted grand- 
son by Richard Throckmorton’s will, and possessing a 
deserted manor-house which was some day to be put 
in order for its future master. 

Indoors at Flower de Hundred, the busy women- 
folk had set the house in festal array for the home- 
coming of the heroes. Floors shone with dry rubbing, 
furniture glowed darkly under skilful hands with cork 
and wax. “Be sure you stick the sockets full of 
laurel,” the order given by the entertainer in Van- 
brugh’s “Relapse” in 1697, was still followed in old 
Virginia homes. Candle frames set over doors were 
hidden by classic garlands of magnolia leaves. Vases, 
jugs, bowls, fireplaces, corners, every niche and nook, 
were filled with flowers. The store-room shelves 
creaked under the old-fashioned dainties prepared be- 
fore a feast ; in and out of doors passed willing house- 
servants ; around the verandas prowled dark little fig- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


47 


ures whose mammies in the quarter had not been 
able to exclude them from taking a sniff in advance 
at the general good cheer. The study, the only spot 
about the house held Sacred from intrusion, was a 
small high-ceiled room, the walls having shelves filled 
with books on angling, agriculture, farriery, and for- 
estry. There were also sundry bound volumes of 
proceedings of the State Senate, of which august 
body the Colonel had had the honor to be during two 
terms a member — after a time of service as aide to the 
Governor, a position designated by the honorary mili- 
tary title his countrymen were prompt to confirm to 
him for the remainder of his days. Over the mantel- 
piece of this room was a portrait of Mildred, Richard 
Throckmorton’s wife, who had had no rival in his 
faithful heart — a high-bred face, expressing mingled 
sweetness and reserve, with soft blue eyes, and sunny 
hair wrapped with a string of pearls that crossed one 
shoulder to the bosom of her gown. Beneath it hung 
a cabinet picture of their son Philip. In pigeonholes 
of the battered old desk near at hand were Phil’s com- 
positions tied with blue ribbon, Phil’s diploma from 
the University, with other sad relics and bundles of 
letters assorted according to their dates. Along the 
wall base were ranged the Colonel’s boots and shoes, 
and the old slippers he liked to put on when returned 
from his early ride with a glow on his dark face that 
was born of the dew-washed morning, of his scrutiny 


48 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


of field and barn, bird on the wing and creeping thing 
as well — for he was a rare lover of Nature and espied 
much the young people overlooked. 

Above Mildred’s picture, the Colonel had hung a 
sword. Starting life a younger son, he had been 
a midshipman during the war of 1812, was with 
Hull in the Constitution when he captured the Gucr - 
rttre y and had left the navy only when recalled to 
Flower de Hundred at the death of his older brother. 
Of this period of his life Richard Throckmorton re- 
tained two things very precious to him ; a deep love 
and reverence for the flag of the United States — and 
this sword presented to him for gallantry in action 
under Decatur, in the fight with the Macedonia. 

To-day, as the old man sat thinking of his boys, he 
felt his heart/ throb with young interest and emotion, 
and was grateful to God for the late flowering blos- 
soms in his chequered life. Their hopes and the pros- 
pects of their manhood were as absorbing to him as 
his own had been. For Dick, the way seemed clear 
enough. He was a good boy, a true Throckmorton, 
and would sit worthily in the seat of his fathers, and 
do his duty like a man. Besides — and then, certain 
ideas entered into the brain of this innocent old 
schemer that made him smile and almost blush. 
Well, well, time enough for that! About Miles, now, 
he was not entirely at rest. Things had come to his 
knowledge — young follies rather than wrong-doings — • 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


49 


that cut the deeper because he had been left to find them 
out from others. He had tried so hard to teach Miles 
not to fear him. This must be his share of the inevit- 
able disappointment of old folks who trust too much in 
their hold upon young hearts. To labor, pray, hope, 
be patient — forgive and begin afresh — that is the part 
of a watcher and guardian over undeveloped souls. 

So deep was the Colonel’s reverie, he failed to 
notice that the boat had touched at the wharf and 
passed into the stretches of river beyond, seen from 
his study window. He heard a commotion of voices 
in the hall — a barking of dogs — and then rapid foot- 
steps; and, with a light preliminary tap, Dick and 
Miles burst in, followed by such of their dogs as were 
quick to writhe inside before the shutting of the door. 

“Why, Dick! Why, Miles! you young rascals; 
you’ve caught me napping,” he cried out cheerily, 
veering around in his chair to give a hand to each. 

“Here’s my degree of B.A., grandfather,” said Dick 
eagerly; “I wouldn’t tell any of ’em I had it, till you 
should hear first.” 

“And here is mine, sir,” said Miles, after a mo- 
ment’s hesitation. He was very pale, and had kept a 
little in the background. 

“Boys, boys — ” exclaimed the delighted Colonel. 
He could say no more. A rush of pride and exulta- 
tion swelled his throat. 

“And Miles got his M.A. at a jump, sir,” went on 
4 


5o 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Dick, “while we slow fellows were creeping up the hill. 
Everybody says his examinations were the most — ” 
“Stop, Dick — not a word more,” interrupted Miles. 
“I’d feel like a coward if I let my grandfather think 
me better than I am. I’ve been in disgrace, sir, 
with the Faculty, for being on a spree in College 


bounds And I came awfully near not getting 

this at all Till yesterday, I thought I’d lost it, 


and would have to come home to you, here, like a 
whipped cur.” 

His voice shook. The vein between his eyes was 
swollen, and his breath came short. 

“Grandfather, hear me” cried Dick. “I’ll tell you 
the whole story from the first. Poor Miles has been 
under such a strain, he’s all used up. You know how 
hard he’s been at work — everybody knows that ; giv- 
ing up all the fun for weeks. Well, we were cock 
sure of his degree ; and two or three nights before the 
finals, he went out with some fellows and they had 
something to drink and made a row in bounds. 
When the authorities got after them, the others got 
away, but Miles walked back and gave himself up, and 
owned to the whole thing. Of course they kept him 
at arm’s length, * awaiting sentence.’ The least they 
could do was to refuse him his degree, ’twas said. 
Do you know, that not only the University but the 
whole town was in an uproar over it. Everything was 
at fever-heat. The Faculty were besieged by notes 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


51 


and petitions to let Miles off, and all the girls went for 
the Professors wherever they could catch one. But 
not a word pro or con was spoken by the Profs. Yes- 
terday was the greatest day in my life. There was an 
immense crowd in the hall for the final exercises, and 
there was I, taking my B.A. with a heart heavy as 
lead, thinking of poor old Miles, who wouldn’t even 
see me when I went to him before going to the hall. 
All the business, all the speech-making, was disposed 
of, all the other honors awarded, and not a word of 
Miles. At the very last, when murmurs of sympathy 
were running through the crowd, a lot of pretty girls 
crying, and we fellows feeling like thunder, you’ll 
believe — I just put my hand up to my face and 
wanted the floor to open and swallow me- — when, 
suddenly, up got dear old Doctor Maupin upon his 
feet and you might have heard a pin drop. After 
clearing a very big frog out of his throat, he said he’d 
ask to detain the audience but one moment longer, 
abouj a matter he’d been led to believe was one of 
general interest. He told Miles’s story without men- 
tioning his name, saying that in view of his high stand- 
ing at the University, his previous good behavior, his 
excellent average in examinations, but ‘especially be- 
cause of the unanimous and gratifying request of the 
men of his year and the community, the Faculty had 
consented that his offense be condoned.’ 

“At this there was one tremendous burst of cheers. 


52 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


But, by Jove! grandfather, when the Doctor took 
up a paper from the table, and called out Miles 
by name to come forward and receive his degree as 
Master of Arts in the University of Virginia — well, 
you don’t hear noise like that every day! There 
came old Miles, pushing his way from the very far 
end of the crowd, as pale and haggard— ! I believe 
the fellows wanted to carry him up on their shoul- 
ders — ! When he took his paper and bowed and 
turned away, the audience broke out again, the men 
all cheering, the ladies waving handkerchiefs! I got 
at Miles, I don’t know how! When the fellows let 
him off, we went into his rooms. He’d eaten nothing 
that day, and was half-starved and shaky. But all he 
said was, ‘I’m glad — for grandfather.’ ” 

Dick broke down in a boyish fit of crying. Without 
a word the Colonel opened his arms to Miles — who 
went down upon his knees, and laid his head in his 
grandfather’s lap. 

“That isn’t all, sir,” he said, in broken accents; 
“there are other things. I’ve not been worthy of Dick 
and you.” 

“My son, my son,” said the old man, stooping over 
and gathering him into a close embrace. 


CHAPTER III. 


Life was very beautiful to little Ursula. It was 
a cloudless summer day with enough air stirring, the 
dust was laid by recent rains, and they were going — 
Cousin Polly, Bonnibel and she, in the carriage, the 
boys on horseback, — for a round of neighborhood vis- 
its — a “broad,” the negroes called it, — the heat of the 
day to be spent at Honey Hall. Besides, she had on 
a new tea-colored jaconet with coral sprigs, and a Leg- 
horn hat with an ostrich plume curling entirely around 
the crown and descending to the shoulder, lace mit- 
tens, and morocco slippers with black ribbons lacing 
them across stockings of white Lisle thread. To 
assume these glories she had gone to her room 
directly after breakfast, followed by her black familiar, 
Vic; and then, finding herself ready long before any 
one else, she had taken Vic out to sit on one of the 
haycocks on the lawn in the shade of a horse-chestnut 
tree and “listen to Miss Nutty read aloud.” 

Vic — what is known as a “bacon-colored” young per- 
son, with rampant twigs of hair plaited and tied with 
white sewing-cotton — had been told off as Ursula’s 
especial maid. Nutty, fired with philanthropic zeal, 
and the inward conviction of her own superior clever- 


53 


54 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


ness, had begun Vic’s education. The lessons went on 
in all sorts of odd places, a favorite one the elbow of 
an old tree upon the river bank, where, Nutty holding 
the book, Vic sat at her feet in the warm sand, mak- 
ing gardens decked with pebbles and moss. When Vic 
proved unusually dull and the teacher forsook her 
over-tedious task for some book to which she had 
been itching to return, she would salve her conscience 
by reading aloud from it. This was really heroic 
when it might be a question of Madame d’Arblay, 
Miss Ferrier, Miss Austen, or Sir Walter Scott. With 
the latter author in particular, there were so many 
pages one needed to skip to get at the conversations 
or adventures! Nutty’s library was the musty closet 
off the drawing-room, where the books discarded from 
the other shelves were left to the slow ravages of 
queer little bloodless creatures that ran away across 
the saffron page when their hermitage was opened. 
There was one small high window, and under it an 
old chest, whereon, nibbling at a green cucumber 
pickle, Ursula passed many hours in a dream world of 
delight. The boys laughed at her fondness for the 
broken-backed volumes in the parlor-closet. They 
read Sir Walter from the library edition, and pooh- 
poohed Miss Austen as rather a dull old thing, who 
wrote about people you could see by just driving 
around the county. 

In this sequestered spot, Nutty first came upon the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


55 


Canterbury Tales, Milton’s L’Allegro, Penseroso, and 
Comus (Paradise Lost did not attract her in the least), 
and Shenstone’s Schoolmistress. Shakspere was early 
her companion ; and, tired of impressing dolls into ser- 
vice as puppets to enact his plays, of which she had 
committed scene after scene to memory, she once 
organized a troupe from the quarter, with Vic as Shy- 
lock, herself Portia, and, grouping the dramatis per- 
sonae, declaimed the casket scene with the other actors 
in dumb show. 

Coelebs in Search of a Wife, Mrs. Opie’s White 
Lying, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Plutarch’s 
Lives, and the Tatler and Spectator, were other works 
rejected for their bindings’ sake from good society, but 
precious in Nutty’s sight. 

An event of her explorations was the discovery of 
an old music-book called “Clio and Euterpe,” once the 
property of an unfortunate Aunt Althea, who had 
been lost in the burning of the Richmond theater. 
Aunt Althea’s portrait, with turret curls and a sky- 
blue scarf, hung in the sitting-room, over the ill-fated 
lady’s harpsichord, an instrument resenting touch 
upon its keys by a peevish and leathery twang. 

From cover to cover, this trouvaille was a mine of 
suggestions of dress, attitude, and sentiment in the 
eighteenth century. Searching through its embel- 
lished pages for a subject for experiment, Nutty, who 
had the hidden ambition to dawn on the startled 


5 6 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


family as a songster, found “Y e Generous Distrefs’d,” 
illustrated by a gentleman in full bottomed coat and 
periwig, kneeling without his hat upon a river’s brink, 
amid a hurricane of wind and rain, beseeching the ele- 
ments to consume his misery: 

“ Blow ye bleak winds around my head, 

And sooth my Heart’s corroding care ; 

Flash round my Brows, Ye Lightnings red. 

And blast the Laurels planted there. 

But may the Maid, where’er she be, 

Think not of my Distress nor me, 

But may the Maid, where’er she be. 

Think not of my Distress nor me. 

May all the Traces of our Love 
Be ever blotted from her Mind. 

May from her Breast my Vows remove 
And no remembrance leave behind. 

But may the Maid, where’er she be, 

Think not of my Distress nor me. 

O ! may I ne’er behold her more, 

For she has rob’d my Soul of rest. 

Wisdom’s assistance is too poor 
To calm the tempest in my Breast. 

But may the Maid, where’er she be, 

Think not of my Distress nor me. 

Come Death, O ! Come, thou friendly Sleep. 

And with my Sorrows lay me low, 

And should the gentle Virgin weep, 

Nor sharp nor lasting be her woe. 

But may she think, where’er she be, 

No more of my Distress nor me.” 

This “favorite Air, set to Musick by Doctor Arne, to 
be sung briskly,” proved to be a warbling old ditty 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


57 


embroidered with appogiature and trills, and full of 
alarming intervals, like “running high jumps” of an 
athlete on the course. Nutty, thinking better of the 
race of men after imbibing the self-sacrificing spirit 
of the words, and believing herself to be alone with 
Vic bobbing her woolly head in approbation, essayed 
the song on Aunt Althea’s harpsichord. With 
strained fervor, real tears in her eyes, and flushed 
cheeks, she rendered it, dealing with a trill toward 
the end by the purely mechanical method of shaking 
her head from side to side while holding to the note. 
To her dismay, the finale was attended by shouts of 
derisive laughter ! There were the boys, hidden be- 
hind the open door! Nutty jumped up in a rage, 
slammed “Clio and Euterpe” on the floor, and, burst- 
ing into bitter tears, ran off and hid herself for half 
the day. 

To-day Ursula had brought out upon the lawn 
several books. Chief of these was a pamphlet written 
by the rector — who, on the occasion of his last parochial 
call, had presented a copy to each young person of 
the family. It was a profound and rather unrelenting 
tract, decrying the sin of dancing. Bonnibel had 
received hers with the sweetest smile and put it away 
in her small “serious” library, the gifts of anxious 
clergymen, female relatives who feared the snare of 
beauty for her soul, sponsors in baptism, and young 
divinity students. Nutty, whose feet had a natural 


53 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


inclination to tread in measures, and who could waltz 
around the floor with a saucer of water on her head 
without spilling it, disliked the doctrine, but was flat- 
tered by the hard words. She had decided to read it, 
“every bit,” and perhaps give a critical opinion to the 
author of its style. She had a deep respect for theo- 
logical literature ; in her eyes no writer who had 
achieved the dignity of print was to be lightly 
esteemed; what deference then was not due to an 
author who produced page after page of doctrine put 
into type and conveying not a glimmer of meaning 
to her intelligence? 

Somehow, the rector’s diatribe seemed out of tune 
with the languorous air, the lazy sails upon the river, the 
hum of insect life, the sound of the scythes mowing 
a field spangled with flowers, the scent of vanilla grass, 
the excitement of her heart over a projected day from 
home. The pamphlet slipped away down the hay- 
cock and was hopped upon by a toad — a fate quite as 
inglorious as that of the sermons of the Reverend Mr. 
Chapin of Westover Church, which, Bishop Meade 
records, served the young ladies for paper in which to 
roll up their hair at night. 

Besides, Nutty fully meant to tackle the dance 
question on the first convenient opportunity. 

“I can’t help loving to dance, Vic,’’ she said to her 
confidante. “It’s the only thing — except riding — I 
really do well. I shall never be beautiful like Miss 


' FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 59 

Bonnibel — what I’d have wished would have been' to 
be lovely and intellectual both, like Corinne of Italy 
(I haven’t told you about Corinne yet, but I will); 
but — ” heaving a sigh — “I suppose I’ve got to be satis- 
fied with storing my mind and impressing all hearers 
when I begin to speak. Vic, when I come out, I 
mean to have a dress of black tulle with fifty 
flounces.” 

“De laws, Miss Nutty!” interpolated Vic. 

“Yes, a vaporous mass of tulle, and a corsage bou- 
quet and wreath of deep red roses, with a diamond 
trembling in the heart of each.” 

“Dat suttenly would be scrumptious,” admitted Vic. 

“Say beautiful, Vic ; I don’t allow you to use vulgar 
words. I wish I could ever hope to wear my hair 
Pompadour. Miss Bonnibel’s is too lovely over that 
cushion. But my forehead’s too high. I tried it, 
and looked a fright. Now give me that fat book, with 
the stitches showing at the back, and the mildewed 
cover — yes, that’s Froissart.” 

“Froissart, Vic,” she went on, when she had found 
the place — Vic and the toad both staring with bead-like 
eyes at vacancy — “was a person who wrote a long 
time ago about Knights and fighting. I will begin at 
a place where — oh ! never mind — it was a battle called 
Cressy,” she said, her attention caught by something in 
a paragraph ahead. “ ‘The valyant Kyng of Behaygne 
called Charles of Luzenbourge, sonne to the noble 


6o 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Emperour Henry of Luzenbourge, for all that he was 
nyghe blynde’ — what is nig blind, I wonder?” 

“ He war des a ole blin’ nigger, reckon, Miss,” said 
Vic scornfully. “Don’t see no call for Miss Nutty 
wastin’ time a-readin’ bout dat ar trash.” 

“Oh! I see — nearly blind — ,” resumed Ursula, 
“ ‘when he understood the order of the batayle, he sayd 
to them about him where is the lord Charles my Son, 
his men sayde, sir we cannot tell, we thynke he be 
fightinge — ’ ” 

Nutty read on, forgetful of all beside. As the old 
tale of heroic valor sank into her sympathetic soul, her 
face grew hot, her eye shot gleams upon the page; 
when the climax was attained, she cried out, with a 
thrill in her young voice, “Oh, Vic, how beautiful! 
What a grand old fellow that blind king was ! I be- 
lieve Cousin Richard would act like that, and Miles 
too. How I love soldiers when they are fierce in bat- 
tle and faithful unto death !” 

Alas, for the young Professor! Vic had done her 
best to keep awake ; but what with the compelling 
rays of the sun rising to the zenith, the boom of bees, 
and the occasional mispronouncing of the text, the lit- 
tle darkey had gone peacefully to sleep. 

“Nutty! O — h Nutty!” sounded Cousin Polly’s 
voice from the back door of the hall. 

And now the party, on pleasure bent, was ready to 
take the road. Bonnibel, in a frock of white mull 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


6 1 


belted around her slender waist, with bishop sleeves, 
a ruffled black silk mantilla, and a scoop straw bonnet 
with a ruche inside, wore at her breast the bunch of 
moss-rosebuds Dick had plucked before setting out. 
She occupied the seat beside Cousin Polly; and Nutty, 
both for the pleasure of occasionally handling the 
ribbons behind a pair of spirited grays and for enjoy- 
ment of the open, sat next the coachman, an old negro 
in tarnished but decent livery. 

When the ladies drove out alone they were usually 
attended by a black boy, who was wont to perch on the 
trunk rack at the back, whistling, dangling his legs, and 
dropping down when they stopped before a gate. As 
there were a dozen gates to open ere leaving the limits 
of the estate, not to speak of those appertaining to 
their neighbors, this functionary was of the first im- 
portance on a drive. Now, the carriage was escorted 
by a pair of dashing cavaliers, cheerfully resigned to 
conform to the neighborhood expectation that they 
would celebrate each return to the plantation by calls 
at the different houses. 

Shortly after leaving the main avenue their road ran 
beside the river bank and at one point disappeared 
entirely from view on a strip of strand, the wheels, at 
high tide, under water to the hubs — a state of things 
accepted serenely as an accustomed feature of Virginia 
life. Their way lay for the most part through deep 
woods under an arch of forest boughs, and at the end 


62 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


of an hour came to a dilapidated gate, held to its post 
by a loop of grape vine, and resisting stout efforts to 
induce it to fly back. “This old gate was broken 
summer before last,’' groaned Miles, as at length it 
yielded, to the resentment of Haidee. 

“Now for Windygates and poor Sabina Ackley,” 
said Cousin Polly. “It’s a trial, I confess, but we can’t 
well pass her by.” 

“I can’t abide your by-gone belles,” said Miles; 
“Mrs. Ackley is a regular old cat.” 

“Miles, my dear boy!” cried Cousin Polly. But the 
young men were off at a gallop along an ill-mended 
road, leading between cornfields to a gray house set on 
the bleak summit of a hill. There were few signs of 
life about the neglected grounds, except for some lout- 
ish negroes at their lounging work; three or four 
heifers and a leggy colt had come in through a gap in 
the picket fence around the house yard, and were crop- 
ping the rank grass ; a sow, lying vast and placid in 
the sunshine, let herself be nosed over by a vora- 
cious young family, pink-eyed and curly-tailed, and 
there were the usual bands of predatory chickens. 
Close to the house, and showing no attempt to screen 
them, were the stables and cow-yards. Under a dead 
tree, that at dusk offered a refuge to turkeys who, 
roosting in its branches, would present the appear- 
ance of strange exotic fruit, was a hen-house, the 
unpainted shingles of the roof crumbling in dry-rot. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 63 

There were no vines, no flower-beds. The decrepit 
apple-trees in an adjoining orchard had long since 
ceased to bear. A pathetic rose, taking heart of grace 
to bloom on a branch fallen over a flight of precarious 
wooden steps to the porch, showed Nature’s only 
effort to beautify the scene. 

To the pull at what proved to be a broken bell 
there was no response. After a knock from Miles that 
set the wild echoes flying through the silent house, 
the door was opened by a barefoot black girl, in tat- 
ters, carrying under one arm a wooden bowl containing 
a brood of fluffy chicks that lifted their yellow bills to 
“piep” a welcome. 

“How dye do, Peggy; is your Miss Sabina at 
home?” asked Cousin Polly from the carriage. 

“You Peggy,” came in a stern voice from the rear, 
“what business you got carryin’ dem chickens to de 
fron’ do’ ; git out wid you, chile, and tell Miss Biney 
de Flower de Hunderd folks is come. Ya-as, marm, 
Miss Polly, Miss Biney’s in, but she’s got a headache, 
an’ gone to lay down. Please walk in, ladies” ; and 
Lindy, a slovenly woman of mature years, ushered the 
callers into the parlor. In the twilight of shutters ex- 
cluding light and air, were seen gentlemen in queues 
and ladies in toupets hung high upon moldering walls. 
Ranged beneath these disconsolate gentry were horse- 
hair sofas gone to seed, uncertain chairs, Pembroke 
tables containing shells, annuals, and fly-blown puzzle- 


6 4 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


cards. Upon a torn curtain, hung across one of the 
windows, a bright-eyed mouse disported in full view of 
the company. 

There was ample time to enjoy the treasures of art 
at Windygates before their mistress made her appear- 
ance. The voices of the guests, raised at intervals in 
a faint attempt at exchange of cheerful common- 
place, died in their throats of very inanition. 

Not so the vocal organs of the unseen powers. 
Heralded by the flop upon the stairs of slippers down- 
at-heel, the visitors distinctly heard a strained whis- 
per in Mrs. Ackley’s tones : 

“Lindy! what have you got to give ’em for re- 
freshments?” 

‘‘Laws, Miss Biney, you know dey aint a smitchin’ 
o’ sponge cake in de box. Pears like dem chilluns — ” 

“For goodness sake, don’t speak of the children 
now. Judy can make some paste cakes, and there’s 
bounce a plenty, if it isn’t as good as — Lindy — just 
you send that Peggy right straight down to the barn 
to tell your master he’s not to put his foot into the 
parlor till he gets on his black coat. Hurry, Lindy, 
hurry.” 

“I’se a hurryin’, Miss Biney,” came in a tranquil 
drawl. Nutty suppressed a giggle, and Miles walked 
to the window in despair. 

A moment later, wreathed in affected smiles, Mrs. 
Septimius Ackley, her body inclined in the Grecian 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 65 

bend that came in about the time of Washington’s 
administration, glided seductively into the room. 

This lady had in youth had the misfortune to be 
styled the beauty of her county, and was what Virgin- 
ians indulgently speak of as a “torn-down little flirt.” ' 
The consciousness of these distinctions had clung to 
her long after Time’s effacing finger had destroyed all 
claim to freshness. She possessed, with a sad defi- 
ciency of teeth, small features, wisps of yellow curls, 
and a manner of talking as if her every utterance were 
a concession to admirers. Her dress, a faded barege 
with flounces, was worn with a wide embroidered col- 
lar and a brooch containing the portrait, abnormally 
staring, of her Septimius in Sunday clothes. Every- 
where that a ring, pin, chain, or bracelet could be 
added, she had assumed these ornaments; and in her 
hand a large turkey-tail fan was continually bran- 
dished to point her observations. 

“So kind of you, dear Miss Lightfoot,” she ad- 
dressed herself to Cousin Polly; “and Miss Leigh, 
and Ursula. Miles, you have positively grown out 
of the knowledge of poor little me — and Dick, too 
— if I had known I was to have a visit from such 
stylish young gentlemen — Y ou must excuse my 
keeping you a little, till I beautified ; but that’s a 
lady’s privilege, I believe. Mr. Ackley? Yes, very 
well, thank you, and the children, too. They have 
such rude health. Since I was married I have never 
5 


66 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


known what it is to feel really well. I s’pose it's 
livin' in this quiet way — no neighbors nearer than 
Helen Willis (who hardly counts, poor soul), and 
Honey Hall, and you. If I want to go visitin’ 
I can hardly ever get a pair. Twenty horses in 
barn and pasture, and me kept mewed up here at 
Windygates. I declare, if my mamma had known 
when she gave Mr. Ackley leave — so wrapped up in 
his farming — we haven’t been to the White Sulphur 
in three years — Yes, that was taken for me, Miss 
Leigh. A little flattered, I’m afraid. No? Really, 
you are too kind. Some people think the nose a 
little — the hair, I don’t deny, is — and perhaps the 
turn of the head — but the expression — I’ve never been 
quite certain of the expression.” 

After a pause to be reassured as to the fidelity to 
life of the smirk upon her portrait, the lady went on 
in a steady stream, nobody venturing to interrupt 
until Dick, in a weary moment turning over a pile of 
songs, rashly inquired if she still kept up her music. 
Charmed with an opportunity for a further display of 
graces, the fair Sabina at once transferred herself to 
the piano-stool and, handing her smelling-bottle to 
Miles, her turkey-tail to Dick, ran her fingers over the 
keys of a tuneless instrument. 

“I’m afraid I’m a little out of practice,” she said 
coquettishly. “What encouragement is there to keep 
up accomplishments in a place like this? Mr. Ackley, 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 67 

now, don’t know one tune from another. All he likes 
is some odious thing like the ‘Arkansas Traveler.’ 
The idea of my playing vulgar jig music — Do you 
prefer selections from the operas, or a ballad? I have 
been considered equally at home in both.” 

Preference having been announced in favor of the 
simpler song, Mrs. Ackley obliged the company with 
“Ever of thee I’m fondly dreaming,” followed by 
“Bird of Beauty.” At the moment when the unfor- 
tunate bird had begun to be apostrophized with a 
second stanza — the refrain in a high thin voice sup- 
posed to simulate his own wood notes wild — deliver- 
ance, in the shape of Mr. Ackley, came into the room, 
who, ignoring his wife’s performance, strode from one 
guest to the other, shaking hands and bestowing bois- 
terous welcome. He was a burly, sunburned man, with 
a stain in the corners of his mouth betraying acquain- 
tance with the Virginia weed, and butternut trousers 
tucked into cowhide boots. The coat, hastily pulled 
on over a colored shirt, proved that he had taken heed 
to Lindy’s warning, but did not banish the odor of the 
stables distributed in his bustling movements. “Miss 
Lightfoot, Miss Leigh, Miss Nutty, I’m glad to see 
you. Welcome to Windygates. The old place isn’t 
what it was in my father’s day — but we’re always glad 
to see our friends. ’Tisn’t often we’ve a chance to 
entertain so many charming ladies at one time. Well, 
Miles, you don’t grow shorter as the years go on. 


63 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


Never saw such a Throckmorton as you are. Dick 
now, don’t look like anybody — has struck out for him- 
self. Come down to the barn, boys, and take a look 
at the stock.” 

‘‘Mercy, Mr. Ackley!” gasped his wife hysterically; 
‘‘do pray, for once — don’t bring your stock into the 
parlor. You see how it is — ” she added, turning to 
the audience. ‘‘Actually he hadn’t the least idea that 
music was going on.” 

‘‘No more had any of us,” whispered Miles to 
Ursula. 

‘‘Well, got nothing to give these good people after 
their long drive, hey?” said the cheerful Septimius. 
‘‘Not a bone in the cupboard says old Mother Hub- 
bard, I’ll go bail.” 

‘‘Lindy has my orders, Mr. Ackley,” answered his 
wife with a freezing air; and at this juncture the door 
was kicked open by Lindy’s stalwart foot, to admit 
that nymph bearing a tray with cherry bounce, 
glasses, plates — and a dish of paste cakes, hastily, but, 
to do the cook justice, skilfully compounded. 

‘‘What’s that? Bounce?” cried their host scornfully. 
‘‘If the gentlemen will step into the next room, I’ll en- 
gage to give ’em something better worth their while.” 

This inevitable scene of old time hospitality — an 
inheritance from English ancestry Virginia would have 
done well to put earlier away — was by Septimius 
habitually performed with what he considered a deli- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


69 


cate regard for the feelings of his guests. Two or 
three decanters, produced from the cellaret, were set 
with glasses on the sideboard, and the company 
moved forward to the charge, — the host turning his 
back upon them but rallying presently to fill his own 
glass and drink to the good health of the rest. 

“What, neither of you, lads/’ he said, in a disap- 
pointed tone. “Well if you wont, and Mrs. Ackley 
thinks we best not mention pigs and sheep, perhaps 
she’ll let you have a look at my ‘Blue Bonnets.’ It’s 
a fact, by jingo, I’ve the finest lot of cocks this year I 
ever had. I’ll back my beauties to win, sir, against 
any in the Old Dominion.” 

This allusion was too much for poor Sabina, who 
held her husband’s celebrity as a champion cocker to 
be an acknowledgment of fall from high estate. The 
old practice of cock-fighting had been decried by press 
and pulpit until few gentlemen dared confess even 
their presence at a main, and a professed breeder and 
owner of such combatants was tabooed in good 
society. Mrs. Ackley became white and red by turns, 
and seemed ready to burst into tears — at which Sep- 
timius, with a grin, put an arm within one of each 
male visitor, and led him unresisting from the room. 

And now arose a clamor of youthful voices. A 
horde of children, black and white, ran upon the back 
porch — among them a little tow-headed girl in a 
check apron, howling dismally. “Oh, those children! 


7o 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


They will be the death of me !” exclaimed the hostess, 
hastening to the door to call out for the inevitable 
Lindy. 

“What is the matter, Lindy?” she added, when the 
deliberate one hove into view. 

“Laws, Miss Biney, what you frettin’ fur? ’Taint 
nutin’ but jes Miss Lizzie say she dun sot down in a 
yaller jacket nes’. But you kyant ’pend on dat are 
chile not to holler ebbery chance she git.” 

“I do think I must have the worst children in the 
world?” appealed Mrs. Ackley to her guests. “They 
run around so with the little darkeys you can’t stand 
them when they come inside the house. Luckily, 
they hardly ever want to come into the house. 
Lindy, go this minute and tell Miss Lizzie to stop 
crying before I come there and whip her well.” 

“I reckon dis’ll stop her,” remarked Lindy placidly, 
gathering up the fragments of the feast. “’Pears like 
de mos’ she cryin’ fur’s to git some o’ de company’s 
paste-cakes, anyhow.” 

The last view of the again smiling mistress of 
Windygates, revealed her standing on tiptoe on the 
desolate porch, kissing her hand with undiminished 
coquetry to Miles and Dick as they doffed their hats 
on riding away. 

“If that woman had given a little less time to her 
so-called accomplishments, and a little more to house- 
keeping,” said Cousin Polly, for once righteously 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


71 


irate, “there wouldn’t have been such a lamentable 
exposure of foolishness. Who would believe Sep- 
timius Ackley had been a handsome young fellow 
envied by all the beaux in the county, when he car- 
ried off Sabina Barton from her other suitors a dozen 
years ago? Dear me! dear me! And a nice little 
fortune he came into at his father’s death ! Shiftless, 
both of them, and their negroes not worth their salt. 
Well, if Helen’s her usual self, our visit to her will 
take away the taste of this.” 

Lawyer Willis and his handsome wife Helen lived 
in an old-fashioned weather-boarded house, set back in 
a grove of locusts and surrounded by many acres of 
wheat, which lent the name of Greenfields to the place 
first known as Werowocomico in the neighborhood. 
As the carriage drove around the sweep, the front door 
was at once opened by a stately old “mammy” in 
head-handkerchief and apron, who, while her strong, 
intelligent face wore a look of grief, smiled and 
curtsied the customary welcome. 

“Miss Helen will be glad to see you, marm,” she 
said. 

“And your master is at home?” 

“No, madam, my marster left for Richmon’ a yis- 
tiddy, on business,” and a look of unmistakable an- 
guish came over the face of the old woman who, 
seeing them seated, left the drawing-room. 


72 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


‘There’s something wrong,” said Cousin Polly, with 
a clouded brow. 

Fifteen years before, when Peyton Willis had run 
away with and married Helen Blair against the will of 
her father, the old judge, who admired his clever law- 
student, but knew too well his overmastering tendency 
to drink, the country had rung with the Young 
Lochinvar achievement. Helen, a wilful beauty, was 
convinced of her own power to work any cure in the 
man who loved her and followed her as Peyton Willis 
did. When her father refused his consent, she quietly 
packed her clothes, mounted her saddle-horse, and, 
meeting Willis at a fork of the road near her home, 
rode to the house of his aunt, twenty miles away, 
where a clergyman was in waiting to make them one. 
Trifles turn the scale of public opinion oftentimes, and 
after it was ascertained that these lovers had been 
obliged to swim their horses over the boisterous ford 
of a swollen river in their flight, people were inclined 
to think old Judge Blair narrow-minded for holding 
out against them for several years after the event. 
But a day came when Helen, maddened by her hus- 
band’s brutality when in a drunken fit, went home of 
her own accord, and besought her father to receive her, 
and the Judge tenderly and forgivingly gave his bless- 
ing, but sent her back to the husband of her choice. 
Peyton had, after that, to some extent reformed, and 
the years had lightened Helen’s cross. But from a 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


73 


gallant young lover he had become a moody, sarcastic 
husband. To the outer world he was ever the bril- 
liant, fitful, but companionable man, and accomplished 
lawyer. All of his friends united to bolster Peyton 
Willis into his right place in the community. Even 
Richard Throckmorton, himself the most abstemious 
of mortals, was heard to gloss over Peyton’s occasional 
lapses from the path of temperance. “It isn’t a nice 
habit,” he would say. “But, my dear sir, it’s because 
Peyton can’t take a glass of wine without feeling it. 
Remember his argument in the Carter case — when he 
spoke for three days and kept the Courthouse 
crowded till the last. Egad, sir, his powers are unsur- 
passed. This love of drink has played the deuce with 
many of our statesmen and lawyers; but it hasn’t 
cramped their powers. Look at Webster — look at 
Harry Clay dancing a jig on the dinner-table among 
the broken glass and china, and going into Court next 
morning fresh as a buttercup.” 

All the same, the old gentleman would lead his 
grandsons into the study and adjure them in the name 
of Christianity and cleanliness to let liquor alone, 
seeing the grievous wreck it had made of so many 
lives that might else have been rounded to man’s full 
sphere of usefulness. 

Whatever Helen felt, she usually maintained an ad- 
mirably calm exterior. She was still beautiful, with 
the grand lines of face and figure that change little and 


74 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


the proud spirit that may bleed but gives no sign. 
To-day her guests were greeted courteously and 
made to feel the rare charm of her conversation ; but 
as the young people went out to get into the carriage, 
Cousin Polly lingered. 

“Come, dearie, what is it that’s troubling you ?’’ she 
asked, passing her arm around Helen’s shoulders. 

“Oh ! dear Miss Polly,” the poor woman said ; “you 
will know how I feel. He has sold Stephen, old 
Judith’s only son. Judith came to me from home. 
She was my Mammy, has been with me in joy and 
sorrow, and I love her dearly. Judith loves Stephen 
as I loved the baby I lost — that I can still feel nest- 
ling in my arms. The old woman’s heart is broken. 
Mine would be, but that it broke long ago.” 

“Tell me, my dear,” asked Miss Polly, “when does 
Stephen go away and where?” 

“Next week to Alabama. And I — great Heavens ! — 
am as helpless as if I too were a slave. Oh, the 
shame of it! None of us has ever parted a family. 
He said he has been losing money — and that money 
he must have. I’ll declare, Mammy Judith is a saint. 
In this sorrow it is she who comforts me. ” 

“I know the Colonel is opposed on principle to add- 
ing to his slaves. But in this case — I will tell him. 
He loves you, Helen, for yourself, and as the child of 
his old friend. For your sake, he has stood by Pey- 
ton. He will not see you suffer such a wrong.” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


75 


“Then, oh, dear kind friend !” cried Helen, burst- 
ing into tears that loosed the flood-gates of her woe, 
“ask him, if he loves me, to buy Mammy, too. He 
has threatened me to part with her — when he was not 
himself — I live in terror — Mammy! — oh, the thought 
is torture !” 

Cousin Polly left Helen on the sofa, and went out 
to the carriage. At the door she was met and saluted 
with the same quiet dignity by Mammy Judith. 

“IVe been hearing of your trouble, Judith/’ the 
kind lady said ; “Miss Helen will tell you I’m going to 
speak to Colonel Throckmorton to see if he can’t buy 
Stephen back. If it’s possible, I think it will be 
done.” 

“ Mistis ! ” cried the old woman, a pure ecstasy shin- 
ing in her tear-worn face. And then, lifting her 
streaming eyes to Heaven, she meekly said, “I knew 
thou wouldst not fail thy sarvant, Lord.” 

Honey Hall ! To one who has shared its bounties, 
the heart warms at mention of this “haunt of ancient 
peace.” Many such generous old homes are remem- 
bered in Virginia, for methods of entertaining con- 
ducted on the broad and simple lines common to peo- 
ple who altered not their way of living for the stran- 
ger within their gates ; they gave to the State its best 
name for hospitality. 

Of outward show, and straining for effect in the 


76 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


eyes of guests there was none; and the welcome 
flowed in a steady stream for all. Honey Hall, since 
time out of mind, had been owned by Hazletons. 
“Old Tom,” the present master, had kept his paternal 
acres up to a high point of cultivation, his wheat 
crops excelling those of Flower de Hundred. A thin, 
swarthy old gentleman, with twinkling eyes set in a 
wrinkled visage, he presented a complete contrast to 
his spouse “Tabby,” who was stout and blonde, with 
several chins and abundant dimples. She was a notable 
housewife, spending her days at the heels of a horde 
of fat, lazy house servants, whose duties were sub- 
divided to allot to each the minimum of labor. After 
the war two of the Honey Hall negroes, girls of six- 
teen and eighteen, drifted to the North and applied 
for places at an intelligence office. On being asked 
“Can you cook?” their answer was, “No, marm, we 
ain’ never bin cookin’ none; Aunt Peg, she alius 
cook.” “Can you wash?” “No, marm, Aunt Sally 
she dun de quality’s washin’.” “Then for graci- 
ous sake, what can you do?” said the employer. 
“Well, marm, Jinny most in general she hunt for ole 
Marster’s specs; en I kep de flies off him wid de 
turkey-tail.” 

Mrs. Hazleton’s temper was fortunately proof 
against any test of idle inconsequence on the part of 
her dependents. She spoiled them and everybody 
who came within reach of her large-hearted nature 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


77 


overflowing with the milk of human kindness. She 
was always in a hurry, with cap-strings flying; and 
she talked in a breathless fashion which permitted few 
of her sentences to reach a legitimate ending. 

Tom, fierce in politics, unsparing in the denuncia- 
tion of opponents who chanced to differ with him, and 
fancying himself a domestic tyrant, was, with his wife, 
under the thumb of old Vashti, a mulatto woman who 
acted as deputy to Mrs. Hazleton. Volunteering for 
the Mexican war, he had brought back a flesh wound, 
establishing him in Vashti’s eyes as a confirmed inva- 
lid, requiring coddling and supervision for the remain- 
der of his life. There is nothing more easy than to 
convince a robust man, with a good appetite and diges- 
tion, that he has the monopoly of some hidden in- 
firmity exceptional in symptoms, and necessitating con- 
stant care. Playing upon this string of human nature, 
Vashti had established herself in the clover of an 
opiniated woman’s imagination — the right to dictate, 
to hector, to dose, ad libitum, a resentful but secretly 
flattered patient of the stronger sex. She was a sour- 
looking yellow woman, scrupulously neat in person 
and accomplished in her domestic functions. Every- 
thing “laughed” at Honey Hall, but Vashti, as every- 
thing “waxed fat,” but Vashti’s master. 

Old Tom’s happiness was in crowding his house 
with visitors, until the spare rooms, containing some- 
times three double beds apiece, were full and guests 


78 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


were obliged to put up with cots in the billiard room 
and mattresses in the bowling-alley. At a summer 
ball young men had been known to camp out in 
the hay-loft at the barn, and to proceed in relays for 
breakfast at the house. 

Before his visitors were stirring in the morning, 
Tom would leave the connubial “charmber” on the 
ground floor, to brew two jorums, differing in size, of 
the beverage blending Bourbon whisky and shivered 
ice with the plant that flourisheth best on the grave of 
a good Virginian. His mint-juleps, tinkling and frag- 
rant, were then sent around to the several apart- 
ments with “Marster’s compliments.” To refuse this 
loving-cup would have been a breach of duty to one’s 
host. Therefore — tradition tells not what befell that 
dispatched to the bedsides of male slumberers, — there 
might have been seen rosy half-awakened maidens, 
leaning on rounded elbows in bowers of tumbled hair 
to sip like humming-birds of the sugared chalice held 
by an ebon Hebe. 

“Horrid! So dreadfully strong,” they called it, and 
sipped again. 

“It’s good for you, young ladies,” would say old 
Tom at breakfast, on hearing these complaints. “A 
little something for the stomach’s sake, you know! 
Keeps off chills and fever too — not that there ever 
was a chill at Honey Hall in my time — well, Tabby, 
my dear, and what have you got for us this morning?” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


79 


As the callers from Flower de Hundred, turning in 
at a linden avenue caught their first sight of the 
house, they were in turn descried by the sole waking 
occupant of what Cupid, the being in question, was 
wont to speak of as “de front poche.” In a splint- 
bottomed chair, under the shadow cast by a multiflora 
rose that running up one side of the portal crossed it 
and fell in a blossoming cascade upon the other, old 
Tom was napping. Dressed from top to toe in white 
linen, he wore a broad Panama hat, and across his 
knees lay a week-old copy of the Richmond Whig. 
In Tom’s opinion one might always sleep and let the 
Richmond Whig sustain one’s principles. Not far off, 
there was a shelf with a bucket of spring water and a 
gourd; but the empty glass on a light stand at his 
elbow revealed suggestive particles of nutmeg clinging 
to its sides. Mounted on a stool behind his master, 
Cupid, a solemn urchin of ten, was, with a branch of 
lilac-leaves, describing circles in the air around the 
sleeper’s head. Occasionally miscalculating, he would 
dip, graze the old gentleman’s ear and elicit a whist- 
ling snort causing the offender to assume an instant 
expression of fidelity to duty that could on no terms 
be moved to deviate. 

When Cupid spied the carriage the whites of his 
eyes enlarged and his excitement transgressed all 
bounds of ordinary decorum. “Wake up, Ole Marse !” 


8o 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


he cried, smartly sweeping the lilac bough downward 
to touch his master’s cheek. 

“What! What! D — n these flies!” said old Tom, 
drowsily, settling for a deeper sleep. 

Cupid’s feelings overcame him. Dropping the 
bough, he fled into the house to encounter the mete- 
oric Tabby coming across the hall. 

“Ole Miss, dar’s company,” he exclaimed convul- 
sively. 

“Well, Cupid, rouse your master up. Hurry, and 
don’t stand staring there.” 

“But, Ole Miss, I dun tried; and he sa-ade cuss 
words.” 

“Well, I should think somebody might be found to 
save me from having to do this,” remarked Mrs. 
Hazleton, dashing outside to reclaim her lord from his 
lotus land of dreams. 

“Run, Cupid, tell Aunt Vashti the Flower de Hun- 
dred carriage has turned down the avenue. Lucky I 
killed a pair of guinea hens, the ducklings mightn’t 
have been enough. Soc-ra-tes ! Aw ! Soc-ra-tes ! 
Call Job and Jingo to come here and take the horses. 
Now Tom dear, do be careful of what you eat at din- 
ner; you know I don’t like to make signs before — 
remember the crab salad the last time we’d company 
to — when you thought neither Vashti nor I was look- 
ing — Vashti, be sure Dido has a corn pudding — Master 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


81 


Miles will have it there’s no corn pudding like ours at 
Honey Hall — and be on the watch that Joe don’t get 
hold of the floating island to hand around — he stares 
so, you can only trust him with solid dishes — put the 
cracked finger-bowls before me and your master — I 
declare I’d have to be made of finger bowls to please 
these servants — I hope Dido wont get in one of her 
tantrums and keep the dinner back till three — to be 
sure they’ll have something when they come, poor 
things, and we’ll cut a watermelon soon — Vashti — ah ! 
she’s gone; Cupid, you numbskull, run tell her not to 
forget iced tea with the lemonade and shrub when 
they first come. Polly Lightfoot’s there, and so is 
Bonnibel — bless me, if there isn’t a snag in my new 
lawn — I must ha’ caught it on a barrel in the store- 
room — tut — tut — tut, but there’s no time now to — here 
come the boys at a gallop — welcome to Honey Hall, 
young gentlemen, the sight of you is good for any 
eyes.” 

Tabby could not deny herself the indulgence of a 
rousing kiss bestowed on each one of these handsome 
youths. The carriage followed, and old Tom stepped 
out briskly to the block. “Ladies, your most obedi- 
ent — Welcome, welcome all — 'Miss Nutty, there’s a 
bee-hive waiting for you to upset like you did when 
you were here before — well well, I’ll not mention it — 
How are you, boys? — told we’re to congratulate you 

on carrying off the honors — bless my soul, I reckon 
6 


82 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


old Dick Throckmorton’s that puffed up with pride 
there’ll be no enduring him — Miss Bonnibel, we didn’t 
expect to see cheeks like yours till my peaches ripen, 
he, he, he! Miss Lightfoot, ma’am, I trust you’re 
satisfied that it was my revoke, not yours — well, well, 
women will have their way, but, after dinner, you must 
give me my revenge.” 

“Howdye, howdye, come right in and rest,” was 
heard in Tabby’s breathless sentences. “Thank ye 
kindly, Dick, we’re so so; Mr. Hazleton’s most always 
a touch of his old enemy on hand — keeps Vashti 
busy, doesn’t it, Tom dear? Been preserving quinces, 
— thankful it’s so cool — sit down, take something, do — 
Vashti’s own black cake — needn’t be afraid when 
Vashti stones the raisins — Tea to Miss Lightfoot — sure 
none of you’re overheated — give palm leaf fans to the 
ladies, Cupid, quick — such a sad thing about Mrs. Pat- 
sey Carmichael, of the Ridge — why, haven’t you heard, 
iced tea when very hot and a rash that struck inside — 
fie Miles, I’ll be boun’ for you to laugh.” 

“Tol’able, thank you,” Tom was saying to Miss 
Lightfoot. “These women’d be the death o’ me with 
doctoring, if they could — Tabby now’s a leetle poorly; 
caught cold a Monday, cornin’ home from old Parker’s 
funeral, and up again a-Wednesday to go to Miss Dan- 
cer’s weddin — he! he! he! Trust Tabby, when there’s 
junketin’ on hand.” 

They were shown through a matted hall — the walls 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


83 


covered with guns, rods, whips, a museum of Tom’s 
old hats, prints of race horses, and a map of the county, 
with the seat of Thomas Hazleton, Esq., outlined in 
red — into a pleasant room, the bare floor lustrous, the 
six windows hung with lambrequins of fringed netting 
over Venetian blinds. 

In this room neatness reigned over a prim adjust- 
ment of old-fashioned furniture. In the fireplace, an 
ogre that in its day had devoured forests, the brass 
dogs gleamed through a green mist of fresh asparagus. 
On the high mantel-piece were silver candelabra, 
ostrich eggs, and Bow and Chelsea shepherdesses. The 
chairs and sofas, covered with hair cloth and abundant 
in brass nails, stood in rigid ranks. Cupboards were 
filled with pretty old china, behind glass doors and 
under lock, or Tabby’s servants would not have allowed 
it to remain. On the center table were “The Memoirs 
of an Elderly Gentleman,’’ by Lady Blessington, 
the poems of Mrs. Hemans, of Nathaniel Parker Wil- 
lis, and other specimens of politest literature in red 
morocco. Ursula, seated on an ottoman worked by 
Tom’s mother to represent Melrose Abbey by moon- 
light, ate nibbles of cake and drank sips of raspberry 
vinegar, divided between a desire to plunge at once 
into the pages of Lady Blessington, and to run out 
into the orchard where the bees were hard at work. 
Etiquette entailed this brief preliminary concession to 
formality. People sat around, untied their bonnet 


8 4 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


strings, fanned themselves, answered questions about 
each other’s ailments, and then, after a decent interval, 
scattered to follow their own sweet wills. From the 
flower garden, where Tabby was greatly given to the 
culture of clove-pinks, were wafted through the chinks 
of the window shutters perfumes that might have 
come from Araby the blest. Vashti did not allow cut- 
flowers in the parlor, and thus nature took her odorous 
revenge. 

When the season lent its aid, Tom always invited 
his guests to come out into the “back poche” and cut 
a watermelon ; and the company proceeded with alac- 
rity to follow him. Thither, little darkeys, staggering 
under the weight of melons coated with dew from 
the ice house, came in a procession to lay their tribute 
at the master’s feet. Old Tom, with a critical eye, 
decided whether they were worthy to be broached. 
Half the pleasure of a watermelon is in the uncertainty 
whether its pink pulp will fulfill the promise of the 
richly green and mottled coat — for on this point there 
is no infallibility of judgment based on externals. 
Equally interested in the result were an assortment of 
young Africans hiding in a big bush of box that in its 
day had sheltered many chickens and children fleeing 
from wrath pursuing. They, and the bearers of the 
treasure, followed the movements of the master with a 
subtile relish almost as satisfying as the reality for 
which they hoped. It is not too much to say that 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


85 


this feeling presently inspired the whole circle of 
lookers-on to realize they were brothers in the 
bonds of a mouth-watering anxiety. When Tom 
found a melon to his liking, it was set before him on 
a tray. With a long sharp knife poised over it, he 
stood, then the blade flashed through the air, and the 
great oval fell apart, revealing contents crisp, roseate 
of hue, set with rows of black-brown seeds. Uncer- 
tainty was at an end ! The melon was ripe, full ripe, 
not over-ripe, luscious in quality, bursting with July’s 
juices! Involuntarily the assembly broke into an 
“A-h-h-h” of relief and satisfaction ! 

Another polite form maintained at Honey Hall, was 
to ask visitors, confidentially, if they cared to “lie 
down a little while and take a nap.” The young 
people, who knew where to find bowls and billiards, 
fruit and flowers, shaded arbors, and the streamlet 
gliding across the orchard, generally preferred to keep 
awake; Tabby and Cousin Polly, resorting to rocking 
chairs in the “charmber,” enjoyed a feminine sympo- 
sium of gentle gossip. Tabby, outwardly serene, had 
always a perturbed center on the subject of Dido and 
the dinner-hour. The kitchen, in an outbuilding at 
the end of a colonnade, was Dido’s fortress. Once 
Tabby had there administered a long-intended lecture 
on procrastination. “Ye call that scoldin’, Miss,” said 
the old cook, setting her arms a-kimbo; “why you 
can’t scold worth a cent.” And the dinner hour con- 


86 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


tinued to adjust itself to Dido’s notions, drifting 
until recalled, along the afternoon. 

When the company reassembled to-day around a 
well-spread board, set with willow pattern china, old 
Tom, standing at the foot with his hand upon his chair, 
surveyed the table and uttered his usual pleasantry : 

“Well, is this your little snack, Tabby?” 

“Best we could do to-day, Tom dear, considerin’ — ” 
the hostess answered, with an indulgent smile. 

“Humph! For what we are about to receive, may 
the Lord make us duly thankful — Amen. Miss Light- 
foot, ma’am, I’m goin’ to ask you to notice the flavor 
of this ham — a leetle slice — hum ! hum ! cooked to a 
T — the lean, pink as a lady’s cheek — the fat, sweet as 
a nut — bless my soul, Tabby, my dear, if I haven’t 
clean forgot whether we’re eatin’ Sis or Alick!” 

“Alick, Tom dear. Sis wasn’t killed, poor thing, till 
just before last Christmas.” 

“To be sure, Tabby, to be sure. I ought to have 
known Alick,” said the master, holding his carver sus- 
pended with a pensive air. “He weighed all of a 
hundred and twenty-five, Miss Lightfoot, ma’am, and 
knew his name like any Christian. Billy, you rascal, 
hand Miss Lightfoot ’s plate.” 

Bonnibel’s room was in the old wing- at Flower de 
Hundred whose outer walls of brick, alternately black 
and cream, were coated with moss wherever English 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


87 


ivy did not weave its stems to make a bower for the 
“Belle au Bois Dormant” here and there piercing 
the window frames with long pale shoots that un- 
folded leaves of ghostly green within. Her chamber 
adjoined that of Ursula, and to reach their quarters 
the girls had to mount narrow stairs with a balustrade 
carved like a Chinese ivory puzzle and continued 
around the entry above after the fashion of a musi- 
cian’s gallery. Naturally, Ursula’s pleasure was to 
insinuate herself into Bell’s room when the latter was 
brushing her hair for the night, and talk of her day’s 
experience with unflagging tongue. It was their habit 
in summer to dispense with light as much as possible, 
and to undress by the glimmer of a taper set on the 
floor in the hall outside. Cousin Polly, from the room 
opposite, often called out to the pair to cease their 
chattering, and remember beauty sleep ; but Bell 
would answer back that such nights were too heavenly 
to waste in slumber. 

On the evening of their return from Honey Hall, 
Bonnibel had seated herself at her window, Ursula 
kneeling with both arms on the low sash. The light 
breeze was charged with odors of pine blowing past 
garden plots. In the sapphire vault above, stars of 
the Southern night burnt with surpassing brilliancy. 
In the swamp a persistent whip-poor-will kept calling, 
lamenting. From the dusky belt of woods hiding the 
quarter issued the twang of banjo-strings and soft 


88 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


preliminary notes of song from revelers, for whom 
the night had just begun. 

“What do you think, Bonnibel?” said Ursula, 
trembling with mystery. “If I tell, will you cross your 
heart and — deed and deed and double deed you’ll 
never tell? I heard Mrs. Hazleton — say to Cousin 
Polly — now you’ll jump — that it is plain to everybody 
that has eyes in her head, who is going to be the 
next mistress of Flower de Hundred — Miss A. L. ! — 
There!” 

“Nonsense, Nutty dear,” the girl said, blushing 
hotly in the darkness. 

“Ah! but she did,” persisted Nutty. “And I 
expect she knows. She’s been married herself, you 
see. I thought it would please you a good 
deal.” 

“Kiss me, you dear little gossip,” whispered Bonni- 
bel. “And promise you’ll not repeat this to anybody 
else.” 

“Oh ! but I haven’t told you all. Cousin Polly said 
the Lord only knows how such things come out ; but 
one thing she is certain of, the Colonel will like Dick’s 
choice. Then the dinner bell rang — Oh ! Bonnibel, it 
must be so grand to have a lover. Dick seems as if 
he envies the ground you tread upon. I saw him 
choosing the moss-rose buds for you. He threw away 
every one that wasn’t perfect. Why, if you haven’t 
saved the poor dead things, and put them in a glass of 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 89 

water on the window-sill. Why, Bonnibel! — Hush — 
who’s that?” 

From behind the tall column of an Irish yew, a 
form came out into the moonlit path of turf beneath 
their window, and crossed rapidly in the direction of 
the main building. 

“It’s Miles!” cried the little girl. “He gave me 
quite a start. He’s always had a way of prowling 
around the grounds at night to smoke his last cigar. 
Bonnibel! I’m sorry I talked so loud. He must 
have heard us ! But, of course, he wont speak of it. 
And then he’s so fond of Dick, he’ll be sure to feel 
glad, too.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


“Here’s news for you, young people,” said the 
Colonel, returning with animation from an interview 
on the veranda with Yellow Jock, the huntsman. 
“Jock says there’s been a fox lying all day in the long 
grass near the pond, waving his saucy brush to attract 
the ducks; and they’ve tracked him to covert in 
Chinquapin Hollow.” 

“Hurrah!” cried Dick, Miles, and Nutty in a breath, 
and soon the contagion spread over the plantation. 
Messengers on horseback were dispatched to their 
nearest neighbors, and hasty arrangements made for 
an impromptu “first run” upon the morrow. 

It was mid-October, and the wine of life seemed to 
be distilled into those long mellow autumn days, spent 
by the household chiefly out of doors. The woods, 
radiant in color, showed no deciduous foliage to com- 
pare in tone and depth with the mandarin yellows 
flecked with blood, the Tyrian crimsons and purples 
of the gums belted or grouped against the blue- 
green pines and relieved by shining hollies and 
masses of evergreen laurel. In these illuminated 
glades sounded the flute note of the robin, the fretful 
call of crows, the bark of acorn-gathering squirrels, the 

oo 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


91 


whistle of “Bob White,” the tap of woodpeckers, the 
patter of nuts falling, obedient to a gentle wind, upon 
the rustling carpet of last year’s leaves so soon to be 
overlaid with a new one. In the trim parterres of the 
garden there was still a brave show of flowers. Japan 
lilies, tiger lilies, Annunciation lilies, perpetual roses, 
poppies, love-in-a-mist, and all the sweet wild tangle of 
hardier blossoms with homely cottage names ; but the 
hollyhocks had begun to slant earthward under the 
weight of seed-pods; and yellowing leaves fluttering 
from the boughs hinted at the inevitable change to 
come. For, though we touch and taste in its perfec- 
tion that season when “the air, the heavenly bodies, 
and the earth make a harmony as if Nature would 
indulge her offspring ” — when “ the day, immeasurably 
long, sleeps over the broad hills and warm wide 
fields,” and “ to have lived through its sunny hours 
seems longevity enough” — there’s no heart but gives a 
sigh to happy summer gone ! 

“What !” thundered Miles, in answer to a whispered 
communication brought to him in the harness room 
that afternoon by one of the negroes, while the young 
men were looking over their hunting gear — in com- 
pany with the two girls who felt “so happy they could 
not stay sitting down,” so averred Ursula. 

“That confounded old black charlatan Daddy Jack, 
who does more harm on the place than he ever did 
work, has wreaked his vengeance on Yellow Jock for 


9 2 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


some offense unknown, by 'tricking him,* ” he ex- 
plained to his curious companions. 

“Which means unless we can persuade Daddy Jack 
to 'set him free’ we’ll lose Jock’s services to-morrow 
with the hounds,” said Dick, in huge disgust. 

“Come on then, let’s lose no time in seeing both of 
’em,” said Miles. 

“ Please let us go with you,” plead Ursula. “I’m a 
favorite with Daddy Jack. That is, he don’t scowl at 
me, and once gave me a tame garter-snake. Besides, 
Bonnibel has never seen his cabin. She’s afraid to go 
with me.” 

“I don’t blame her,” said Miles as they set off. “I 
own to a cold creep down my own back when I come 
within sight of the old sorcerer’s den. There isn’t a 
negro on the plantation that could be got to go there 
after dark. They credit Jack with being in direct 
daily communication with the infernal regions.” 

“‘Satan’s limb,’ Mammy Judy calls him,” added 
Dick. “She is the only one brave enough to say as 
much. But she was scared out of her wits, when we 
were little shavers, when the old fellow took offense at 
Miles and threatened him.” 

“She tied a charm-bag around my neck,” said Miles. 
“And I can remember curious whisperings near my 
mosquito net when I was tucked into my cot. The 
truth is that old fellow can hold a grudge longer than 
anything I ever heard of, but the Pope’s mule that 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


93 


kept a kick for seven long years and then sent his 
enemy to purgatory with his heels/' 

“How did you offend him?” asked Bonnibel. 

“He had the most extraordinary passion for odds 
and ends of finery, and on holidays would always deck 
himself and strut out before the others as solemn as 
could be. Our nurse had taken us to visit the quarter 
when I suddenly caught sight of the little old man, 
dressed in a red plush waistcoat, knee breeches, a coat 
of my grandfather’s with tails that trailed upon the 
ground, and a child’s straw hat perched on the summit 
of a pyramid of frizzed wool. Of course I laughed at 
him, pointed him out with my imprudent baby finger, 
and mocked his gestures. He was furious. I can 
remember he was like an angry ape, dancing and gib- 
bering and threatening me. The negroes picked up 
their children and ran inside their cabins, and Mammy 
Judy did likewise with Dick and me. Since then, I’ve 
been written in his black books.” 

“His father was a Congo chief sold for a string of 
beads, and Jack was thrown into the bargain for a 
looking-glass, he told me,” observed Dick. “He has 
been here since my grandfather’s early boyhood, and 
no one knows his real age. The extraordinary part of 
his romance is that he induced a nice, trig, pretty little 
maid of grandmamma’s to marry him. She lived with 
him awhile, and then came running into the house 
one day and begged for protection, saying he’d given 


94 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


her her ‘death.’ The poor distracted creature brought 
her child, a handsome little boy; and Daddy Jack 
came after them. But by that time matters were too 
far gone, and poor Kitty was actually dying. They 
could not find out that he had done her real violence. 
Mammy Judy always said the old wretch was jealous, 
and had punished Kitty by bringing the ‘night doctor’ 
who rides on a gale of wind after dark, to see her. 
Judy well remembers grandmamma’s distress when 
Kitty died.” 

‘‘And what became of her son?” inquired Bonnibel, 
for whom these tales of the plantation were full of 
interest. 

Dick’s voice dropped. 

‘‘He was Augustus — brought up to be the body-ser- 
vant of my father. Daddy Jack cast him off, and my 
grandfather was only too glad to keep the boy away 
from such an influence. ‘Gus,’ as they called him, is a 
sore subject with the Colonel, though ; and none of us 
ever mention him. He is the only slave of my grand- 
father’s who ever ran away.” 

The conversation was here broken by their arrival at 
the door of Yellow Jock’s cabin. The old negro lay 
on his bed, inside, groaning piteously, his badly fright- 
ened wife rocking her body back and forth and ejacu- 
lating prayers on a chair beside him. Around the 
room was seated a circle of sympathizers, swaying and 
singing. The girls caught one glimpse of Jock’s con- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 95 

vulsed face, froth issuing from his lips, and retreated 
in horror from the scene. 

“Two hours ago, the old fellow was as hale and 
hearty as you please,” said Dick. “From what I can 
ascertain, Daddy Jack merely stepped behind and 
touched him with a goose-feather on the ear, and Jock 
fell down in a swoon. But all the King’s horses and 
all the King’s men couldn’t set Yellow Jock on his feet 
again unless Daddy Jack gives him leave.” 

Miles, of whose boyhood Jock had been the humble 
benefactor, was boiling with indignation. This door- 
step, with the stonecrop growing in tufts about it, had 
been always his resort when he wanted the goodna- 
tured old man to make him a whistle, a bow and arrow, 
or a “pop” whip from a peeled sapling. Here Dick and 
he had fashioned traps for Molly Cotton-tails, and in 
winter cooled in the snow the pigtails Jock had saved 
for them at hog-killing, and allowed them to roast on 
the embers of his hearth. 

Jock had taught both boys to handle their guns, to 
train dogs, to tame animals, to set seines, and to con- 
struct blinds and make decoys for duck shooting; and 
in his care only had they been first allowed to go with 
their guns in boats up the creeks in the marsh. Miles, 
of the two Jock’s pet, had been put forward by Dick 
to proffer requests. In return he saved for Jock a 
share of his good things to eat, and bestowed on him 
bits of silver and little trinkets. Jock’s faith in him and 


96 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

belief that he would make a “real fus-class” Throck- 
morton had induced him more than once to pause be- 
fore and turn away from committing an unworthy 
action. 

Going again inside the cabin, he laid his hand on the 
negro’s clammy forehead. 

“Come, cheer up, old man,” he said. “You aren’t 
dead yet by a long shot. I’m going to see what I 
can do for you by managing old Daddy Devil on my 
own account.” 

“Don’t go, chile,” moaned the sick man. “Fur 
God’s sake don’ go. He’s on’y waitin’ a chance to 
trick you too. Oh! Marse Miles, one on us is 
enough. His spite agin me begun long ago w’en I 
tuk your part agin him. Don’ go, my honey. I’se an 
old man an’ it’s fitten I’se punished for my many sins. 
Lawd, hear de mo’ners !” 

At this, begun anew the wailing chant, and in the 
hysterical confusion that ensued Miles made his es- 
cape. 

“I’ll swear I’ll get my grandfather to order Jack 
into the lock-up,” he exclaimed, on reaching the others 
who were waiting a little farther on. “It’s infamous 
to let him work such a game on poor old Jock.” 

“Let me try persuasion, first,” said Dick. “Take ad- 
vice, Miles, and keep away from Daddy Jack. You’d 
be sure to excite him to some extra foolery.” 

The girls added their entreaties, and Miles in the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


97 


end succumbed. Instead of following them, he turned 
into the garden path before Mammy Judy’s door, 
where he knew the old nurse would be overjoyed to 
receive a visit from her favorite charge. 

This dignitary, who, in virtue of her former office 
enjoyed sundry aristocratic privileges, numbered 
among them a cherry chest of drawers, with a swing 
mirror, a dimity valance to her bed, and a Marseilles 
quilt instead of one made of patchwork. Around her 
neat little dwelling grew scarlet runners trained over 
diamond-bright panes of glass; and sunflowers stared 
in at the windows. The inner walls were a curious 
mosaic of pictures from illustrated papers and fashion 
magazines, pasted on, one dovetailing into the other, 
as the boys themselves had decorated their nursery. 
Judy always contrived to let quality callers find out, 
very soon, that her table had a drop leaf and her 
dishes were ‘Teal” china. Her bric-a-brac was limited 
to a “Little Samuel at Prayer,” a cat and parrot in 
painted plaster, a china mug “To my good Girl,” and 
a shell pincushion — the last two brought to their nurse 
by Dick and Miles, on their return from a visit to the 
seaside at Cape May. She owned also the “doger- 
types” of the Colonel, Madam Throckmorton, and the 
lads, and a silver watch presented by her master after 
nursing Miles through scarlet fever. 

In the chimney-corner, her smile of welcome widen- 
ing in billows of fat till lost in her cap-frills, sat the 
7 


9 8 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


old nurse, and on a bench without, smoking a corncob 
pipe, was her ancient husband, Job — a gay buck in his 
youth, who in his toothless age was still regarded by 
his helpmeet as dangerous to the hearts of the plan- 
tation belles. 

“Well, Uncle Job, how are you?” said Miles, giving 
him a handshake. 

“Sarvant, Marster; I’se po’ly, tank de Lawd. 
Pears like de roomatiz ain’ gwine let me do much uv 
anyting dese days, cep bambilate and soshiate, an 
pass away de time wid de lay-dies.” 

“Hear dat, Marse Miles, honey,” beamed his wife. 
“An my ole man he wonders why I keeps his Sunday 
close locked up in de chist.” 

“She’s tellin’ de troof, Marse Miles,” said the patri- 
arch, displaying his gums in a flattered grin. “Haint 
I nebber tole you ’bout dat time Judy tuk and lock 
up bofe my pair o’ breeches, en kep me abed two days, 
case I scort Ikey Simses widder home from her hus- 
band’s hurrying? Ahe! Ahe!” 

His chuckling reminiscence was interrupted by a 
cough that would have debarred the antique beau 
from further conversation without the interference of 
his wife. 

“You ole tattletale, shut you mouf, ’en stop you 
barkin’,” she said good-humoredly. “Tell Ma-y Jane 
to come cook her Marse Miles a ash-cake. Reckon 
Mammy’s got some chinquapins in de cupboard fo’ her 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


99 


boy. Sit ye down, Miles, baby; en tell Mammy de 
news up to de Gret Hoos.” 

It was delightfully like his old returns from shoot- 
ing to be enthroned in the best arm-chair with the 
goose-down cushions plucked by her own hand and 
covered with blue domestic that smelt of lavender, 
while Mary Jane, Judy’s youngest, bustled around, 
mixing meal and water in a tray. This simple com- 
pound, enhanced by a pinch of salt, was destined to 
final translation into a dainty renowned in old planta- 
tion days. Deftly shaping the dough into cakes, 
Mary Jane ran out into the garden, reappearing with 
the inner husks of late-bearing maize — cabbage leaves 
were as often used — and wrapped each cake in a fresh 
green coverlid. Next, hot ashes were raked from 
wood embers upon the hearth, and the cakes, laid on 
their glowing bed, were hidden from sight by the 
ashes. By the time Mary Jane had arranged to her 
satisfaction a table with knife, fork, pat of fresh butter, 
a plate displaying the passage of General Washington 
across the Delaware, and a glass of buttermilk from 
the morning’s churning, an appetizing smell an- 
nounced the ash cakes browned to a perfect crisp. 
Try it, ye who are doubters; ’tis a meal fit for the 
gods! But alas! with the Mammy Judys of the 
South the skilful Mary Janes have vanished into the 
limbo of forgotten things ! 

Hungry or not, Miles would not have failed to 


IOO 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


appear to do justice to the simple offering of Judy’s 
hospitality. It was an unwritten law of the obli- 
gation of masters to their slaves, that visits to their 
cabins should be conducted with all observance of 
their right to dispense the honors. 

“And now, honey,” the old woman said coaxingly, 
the others having left them to themselves, “tell me if 
dat’s true what Phyllis say bout Marse Dick and Miss 
Bonnibel?” 

There was a sudden fall in Miles’s barometer. 
He could not disguise from the faithful eyes of the old 
nurse the woeful look that came upon his face. 

“I don’t think anybody knows, for certain,” he said 
reluctantly. 

“My lamb!” cried the fond creature, seizing his 
hand and stroking it. “If ’taint sartin, why don’t you 
try too? Wha you reckon Miss Bonnibel gwine to 
find a purtier, conformabler sweetheart dan my pet? 
S’pose I aint heerd from Phyllis an de res how dem 
young ladies at de Springs was pullin’ caps to git you 
to dance an’ ride wid ’em, dis summer? Why, my 
way o’ lookin’ at it, Miss Bonnibel’ll far’ly jump at 
you, and say thankye in de bargain.” 

“Mammy, Mammy, what a blithering old idiot you 
are,” said Miles, laughing. “Remember I’m just 
beginning life, and except for a little nest-egg the 
Colonel is nursing for me, from the sale of my father’s 
share in those Jamaica sugar lands, I’m dependent on 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


IOI 


my grandfather for the bread I eat and the clothes I 
wear. A nice cheek I’d have to ask a girl to marry 
me. 

“Well, en aint you goin’ to law wid Marse Peyton 
Willis — aint smart lawyers bound to git along, en you 
iddicated like you is?” 

“Just at present, my going to law consists in spend- 
ing three mornings a week in the corner of Willis’s 
office, and I can’t say the vista opening from there 
offers immediate riches,” Miles said, with a smile. 
“But you know, Mammy, my good grandfather is to 
give me Timberneck, and I’ve already started in to 
get the place in shape.” 

“Timberneck House was a gran’ place in its day,” 
said Mammy. “Heerd tell dat Lawd Co’nwallis en 
General Washington used to set out on de roof dar, 
smoking deir pipes en ’sputin’ bout how to manage de 
Revellutionary war. Ole Marse, he bought it to fore- 
close de mor’gage wen der warnt a one ob de family 
dat owned it fus, to pay de price.” 

“Well, it’s hardly likely I’d get any young lady to 
wish to set up housekeeping in that old rookery, 
Mammy. So rest content to let me stay a bachelor. 
When I’m forty, perhaps, I’ll ask some plump widow 
with a comfortable income to join hands with me — but 
till then — ah ! well — And you oughtn’t to forget that 
my grandfather wants Dick to marry young — so don’t 
bother your head about me any more. When I do 


102 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


find my l^dy-love, you’ll be the first I’ll tell — and 
when we’re married you and Job may dance a break- 
down at the wedding.” 

M Go long wid your sauce, now,” cried the old 
woman, her great body heaving with laughter. 
“Might’s well spec de ephelan out de succus to git up 
en dance de hawnpipe.” 

Miles laughed with her, but in a half-hearted way. 
His chin dropped into the palm of his hand, and he 
sat gazing into the embers and striving to subject his 
soul to the discipline enjoined by a sense of right and 
duty. Something of the boyish spirit of revolt had 
been stirred within him by the old woman’s wheedling 
words. Latterly, more than once, it had come over 
him that Bonnibel, under cover of the general assump- 
tion that she should pair with Dick, had allowed 
him — Miles — to catch glimpses of an intoxicating 
preference for his own society. The impressions thus 
received were fitful, evanescent, dazzling; but unless 
the heart of man be as desperately credulous as it is — 
according to the Psalmist — wicked, she had meant that 
he should have them. And the bare memory of her 
looks, the smile of her lips, the confiding touch of her 
hand upon his arm, woke in the young man’s breast a 
tumult of emotion! 

“Wot de matter wid you, Miles, honey?” said 
Mammy Judy, who was accustomed to wait upon his 
moods, as a dog waits at his master’s side and follows 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


103 


his movements with beseeching eyes. “Dey’s sum’pin 
troublin’ you mightily. Lord knows wot put it in my 
head ; but, wen you sot dere lookin’ in de fire, you wos 
de breathin’ image uv Marse Philip, fore he went 
away from home en got married to dat Spanish lady 
Ole Marse tole him he couldn’t nebber bring to 
Flower de Hunderd as his wife. Dem was awful 
times, chile — ke’arnt bear to think about ’em now — 
dere warn’ no real ole times at de plantation any 
more, till Marse brought you and Dick en put you in 

my arms to nuss ‘Here’s two babies for you, 

Judy,’ sez he, ‘and dey’s de hope ob my old age.’ 
Dick was a beauty den, fair as a lily like his pa — 
Marse Phil took after his ma en his gran’ma, pink and 
white. Your pa, now, had jet-black hair and eyes like 
coals — my, but he was handsome — when he used to 
come to de plantation to spend his holidays! Marse 
Phil allers follered arter him, like Dick did you. Yes, 
Dick’s like his father dat way, en no mistake ; but ef 
I’m not losin’ eye-sight, you’d a look o’ Marse Phil in 
you, jes now, dat wos like the dead cum back — ” 
“We’ve only to look around at the portraits in the 
Great House and compare them with living people,” 
said Miles, “to see what queer resemblances crop out 
among those who have the same blood in their veins. 
Sometimes I wish I were of the Colonel’s own de- 
scent, though ; I envy Dick the right to stand in the 
dear old fellow’s shoes.” 


104 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“Haint it never come over you, honey, to wonder 
what would ha’ happened ef Dick hadn’t a worn dat 
little gold locket round his neck dat had Marse Phil’s 
picture in it, when Marster found de babies in de 
boat?” 

“Mammy, you are a regular penny-dreadful!” said 
the young man impatiently. 

“No, but, honey, shua’s you live, Gustus tole me dat 
war de on’y sign ole Marse had o’ which was which” 

“Nonsense, old woman. I suppose Gus was drawing 
on his not over-brilliant imagination to make capital 
of his adventures. I often wonder what persuaded 
that fellow to leave the plantation. He is just the 
one I’d like to interview to get the testimony of an 
eye-witness as to our first appearance in American 
society.” 

“Don’t you ask no questions, chile,” said the nurse, 
looking around her nervously. “When Gustus run 
away we all got ole Marse’s orders to keep our mouths 
shet ’bout him; and Lawd knows Daddy Jack’s 
skeered everybody on de place to hole dere tongues. 
Gustus warnt three months back from his journey wid 
de Kunnel to git you and Dick fore he turned up 
missin’ ; he was a roamin’ kind o* nigger any ways, an’ 
wid Daddy Jack behind him dere warnt many folks to 
blame de boy for scootin’. But it hurt Old Marse 
powerful, seein’ he’d had Gustus for his own body-sar- 
vant since de feller was eighteen — ke’arnt think whar 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Gus tuk the sperrit to run away. He war allers peace- 
able enough, and ez spruce and peart ez a jay bird, wen 
all at once, befo’ he left, he tuk to mopin’, an’ look’d 
like he’d seed a ghost. Dar now, dar’s de udder chil- 
lun cornin’ back dis way. Mine wat I tell you, sugah- 
sweet, de beautiful young lady’s lookin out fo’ you. I 
warnt .baun yistidday, en I sees it in de shinin’ ob her 
eyes.” 

The blood streamed into Miles’s cheek, and his own 
eyes kindled. 

“Miles! Miles!” came in a merry chorus. “Vic- 
tory has perched upon our banners.” 

“It’s all right !” said Dick, when he went out to 
them ; “I’ve left a powder with Jock’s wife that Daddy 
says will cure the sick man right away! I’m half 
ashamed of the share we had in it, but the end justi- 
fies the means. We’ll have to keep it from my grand- 
father. He despises this Voudoo business, root and 
branch. It’s as if we’d compounded a felony, but 
what was I to do?” 

“How in the name of wonder did you manage the 
old fraud,” asked Miles, unfeignedly relieved at the 
prospect of Yellow Jock’s release from thraldom. 

“It was the basest bribery and corruption,” said 
Bonnibel. “Dick promised him a hog and a jug of 
whisky, Nutty a pair of mittens of her own knitting, 
and I sacrificed upon the spot the little gold trinket I 
had dangling to my bracelet. Ught it’s the most 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


106 

gruesome place — I shall dream of it, to-night. He has 
a sweet pet rattlesnake in a basket on the hearth.” 

“That trinket put Daddy Jack into the nearest ap- 
proach to good humor I ever saw him in,” said Dick. 
“But I was disgusted to have Bonnibel give a thing 
she had worn to such a creature. I tried to save it 
but in vain. The fellow was evidently flattered by our 
appeal to his occult powers, though I warned him 
plainly that the next attempt at such hocus-pocus on 
his part will see him in the lock-up.” 

“I hope his Master will fly away with him, before 
that time comes,” answered Miles piously. “They 
have been kept too long asunder.” 

Betimes, next day, the rosy fingers of the dawn 
plucked intending huntsmen out of bed. “Mint julep, 
sah? Hot water, sah? Breakfas’ in half an hour, sah ! 
Fine mornin’ fo’ de scent, sah ! Light anudder can- 
dle, sah?” Such were the sounds to greet the awaken- 
ing ear in the men’s portion of the house. The long 
corridor dividing their rooms was filled with negro 
boys, tripping each other up in their haste to carry 
buckets of spring water, morning drams, and newly 
brushed shoes and clothes. Outside might be heard 
the gathering of horses, the sounding of horns, with 
whimper of the eager hounds. In the dining-room 
the table was spread with substantiate for a regiment. 
Bonnibel, in her habit, poured out coffee behind the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 107 

tall silver urn, Ursula serving the less favored bever- 
age of tea. Neighboring squires, in hunting garb, suc- 
ceeded each other at table amid the jocund clatter of 
knives, forks, plates, and voices to be heard only on 
such occasions. 

The sun was rising as the cavalcade finally set off 
down the long avenue, to the noisy delight of the 
pack, whose yelps precluded conversation among the 
riders. Yellow Jock, sitting upon his hunter like a 
Centaur done in bronze, demure, dignified, and master 
of the hour, was followed at a respectful distance by a 
motley gang of negroes, some on foot, some mounted 
on raw-boned plow horses taken from the pasture — one 
venerable darkey in a beaver hat bestriding a mule and 
urging him on with the aid of a pair of huge cavalry 
spurs used in our war with Mexico. The tail of the 
procession was brought up by juveniles, shaded from 
cream color to ebony, dressed in shreds and patches of 
finery, 

“ Wee folk, odd folk, trooping all together. 

Green jacket, red cap, and white owl’s feather.” 

This contingent was cheerfully determined to keep 
up as long as their legs would carry them. One little 
girl “toted” a baby, which she clearly longed to drop 
but dared not, and another was equipped against the 
ardor of the rising sun with a faded parasol, once rose- 
color. 

Dick rode with Bonnibel, Miles with Helen Willis, 


io8 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


whose fine features wore a look of serenity till now 
long a stranger to her friends. At starting, she had 
managed to bestow upon the Colonel a whispered 
expression of thanks that welled up from a heart full 
of gratitude, for he had forbidden her to speak openly 
of the transaction by which Helen’s old nurse and her 
son had become his property, while remaining with 
their former owners who were to pay wages for their 
use. 

Ursula kept, by the Colonel’s orders, close to his 
bridle till he could satisfy himself as to her ability to 
manage the plunging gray she had begged hard to be 
allowed to mount. 

“He goes beautifully , Cousin Richard,” she an- 
nounced, when, after a series of jumps, her horse set- 
tled down to a more manageable gait. “That was 
only his play, you know; we understand each other 
perfectly. But” (confidentially) “I’m just a wee bit 
afraid I’m not quite big enough for Selim. How do I 
look on him?” 

“Very much like a mosquito, my dear,” said the 
Colonel dryly. “Now, Nutty, I depend on you to play 
no pranks and to keep Selim well in hand.” And 
Nutty knew that she must obey. 

They had come out of the woods into an open 
country, scattered with brier-patches, scrubby trees, and 
gulleys of varying width, where the marauder of the 
duck pond had been tracked to cover. The dogs. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. Ic 

thrown off, enraptured, nosed their way along the sus- 
pected places, while the horses, held in check, chafed 
madly, covering themselves with foam. There was a 
long, nervous half-hour, every eye following the move- 
ments of the pack with strained attention ; and then 
arose a mellow, doubtful note. “That’s Flirt ! That’s 
my beauty!” cried the exulting Colonel; “no bab- 
bling when she gives tongue.” 

Another stronger cry from Flirt was swelled by the 
answer of the pack, and then a loud halloo from Yel- 
low Jock as he put spurs to his horse and took the 
lead. The fox is unkenneled, running in full view 
across the field, the hounds after her, keeping close 
together — the Colonel’s boast was like Washington’s, 
“You might cover them with a blanket as they run” — 
and then the whippers-in. 

With glad halloos and ringing horn-blasts, horses 
and riders thrilling in accord, the hunters follow, and 
the chase is under way ! 

It is not my purpose to detail the fortunes of the 
day — enough to say that Mrs. Reynard provided her 
pursuers with a run long remembered and thoroughly 
exciting. Ursula’s gray carried her “like a streak, * 
said Miles approvingly. She, the Colonel, Peyton 
Willis, Miles, Parson Crabtree, and Yellow Jock, were 
in time to see Argus, the ancient of the pack, divide 
with his trusty grandchild, Flirt, the honors of 
attack. And then Nutty, who had ridden gallantly. 


o 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


wanted to burst into tears over the cruel fate of the 
poor dear little fox! But she accepted the brush, 
nevertheless, and the Colonel took the pads ; and if, in 
after years, other pleasures of this world came into her 
grasp, Ursula could truly say there had been in her 
life few enjoyments more keen than that October ride 
after the Flower de Hundred hounds! 

In response to the coaxing of the girls, the Colonel 
had ordered luncheon to be sent to meet the home 
party in a glen at some distance from the house. The 
day, now warmed to the core by sunshine, was delight- 
ful, and they gathered with renewed spirits around a 
cloth laid under a spreading oak-tree on a carpet of 
moss and russet leaves. Bonnibel, swinging in the 
festoon of a vine, her cheeks blooming from the ride, 
purple clusters of grapes dropping upon her auburn 
locks, was like a wild-wood bacchante of the golden 
age. Dick, to whose lot it fell to carve a round of 
‘‘hunter’s beef,” cured after a recipe kept secret in the 
family, and Parson Crabtree, who dispensed a par- 
tridge pasty, had no time for dalliance by the way. 
The Colonel, uncorking some bottles of Bordeaux, and 
Ursula dipping water from a crystal spring, were also 
fully occupied. The rest had scattered in groups 
about the mossy amphitheatre. Miles, only, was recre- 
ant to the service of hospitality. Nutty thought he 
had forgotten his manners, standing with his back to 
the company steadying the grape-vine swing with one 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


ill 


hand, with the other holding her plate or glass for 
Bonnibel, gazing into the girl’s face, speaking ardent 
hurried words into her ear! With her usual belief 
that it was her mission to keep rein on everybody’s 
affairs, the little girl had called Miles and whispered a 
su gg es ti° n that he should hand the potted tongue to 
Mrs. Willis. 

“Oh, she has Dick and the Colonel,” said Miles, 
tossing the lock off his forehead impatiently. “When 
you are grown up, little girl, you’ll know what it 
means to let well enough alone.” 

Nutty’s heart swelled with resentment at this cruel 
stab. She had been fancying herself three inches 
taller and quite one of the elders since her achieve- 
ment in the hunt. She did not recover her equa- 
nimity until somebody produced Bonnibel’s guitar, 
surreptitiously ordered to be sent from home 
with the luncheon, and Bonnibel, descending from 
her sylvan throne, sat on the gnarled root of a 
great oak, and threw the blue ribbon around her 
shoulders. 

Yes! those were the days when the twang of the 
light guitar had not ceased to echo in our homes, to 
make place for the more “fetching” banjo. The Colo- 
nel dearly loved Bonnibel’s songs, sung in a low, clear 
mezzo voice, admirably enunciated, and reflecting her 
humor of the hour. To-day, his first call was for 
“Allan Percy”; and the girl, fixing her eyes on the 


112 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


greenwood depths, chanted — for it is hardly more than 
a monotone — the plaintive ballad : 

“ It was a beauteous lady, richly dressed ; 

Around her neck were chains of jewels rare ; 

A velvet mantle shrouds her snowy breast, 

And a young child was sweetly slumbering there. 

Lullaby ! 

“Lullaby, Lullaby,” sang Bonnibel ; and when she 
finished there was a flattering* call for a contribution 
from Ursula. Nutty, with much spirit, plunged into 
the stanzas that run as follows : 

“ Lord Lovell he stood at his castle gate 
A-combing his milk-white steed, 

On a balcony high stood Nancy Bell, 

A-wishing her lover good speed, speed, speed, 

A-wishing her lover good speed. 

Oh ! where are you going, Lord Lovell, she said. 

Oh ! where are you going, said she ; 

I’m going, my fair Lady Nancy Bell, 

Far countries for to see, see, see. 

Far countries for to see. 

He had not been gone but a year and a day 
Or at most but two or three, 

When languishing thoughts popped into his head. 

Lady Nancy Bell for to see, etc. 

He rode and he rode, as fast as he could. 

Till he came to London town, 

And there he saw a funeral 

With the mourners all weeping around, etc. 

Oh ! who is it dead, good people, he said, 

Oh ! who is it dead, said he ; 

’Tis the Lord s only daughter, the people replied. 

And they called her the Lady Nancy, etc. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


113 


He ordered the coffin to be opened straight. 

And the shroud to be pulled down, 

And there he kissed the clay-cold corpse, 

While the tears they came trickling down, etc. 

Lady Nancy she died on that self-same eve ; 

Lord Lovell he died on the morrow ; 

Lady Nancy she died of pure, pure grief. 

Lord Lovell he died of sorrow — ror-rorrow. 

Lord Lovell he died of sorrow. 

Lady Nancy was buried in St. Martin’s Kipk, 

Lord Lovell was laid in the choir, 

And out of her breast there grew a red rose, 

And out of her lover’s a brier, etc. 

That grew, and that grew, till they reached the church top, 

Till they couldn’t grow any higher; 

And there they intwined in a true lover’s knot. 

All true lovers for to admire — ire, rire , 

All true lovers for to admire.” 

Bonnibel struck a chord in accompaniment now and 
again. And Ursula’s soul, aflight on the pinions of 
song and imaginary woe, was all unconscious of the 
impression she produced ! 

They revived glees and catches : “White Sand and 
Grey Sand,” “Frere Jacques,” “Scotland’s Burning,” 
and “A Southerly Wind and a Cloudy Sky” — the 
forest echoing to the blithe chorus: 

“To horse, my brave boys, and away. 

Bright Phoebus the hills is adorning. 

The face of all nature looks gay, 

’Tis a beautiful scent-laying morning. 

Hark ! hark ! forward ! 

Tirrila ! Tirrila ! Tirrila I ” 


8 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


114 

“That’s after time,” said Miles, as all broke down 
simultaneously in a laugh ; “but it’s pure poetic license 
to talk of people wanting to carol when they’re 
routed early out of bed.” 

Bell and he wandered away from the rest, and pres- 
ently found themselves again at the tempting grape- 
vine swing. 

“Let me mount you,” he said. Bell put her foot 
upon his palm, and lightly swung into place. 

“There, nothing could be more comfortable,” she 
exclaimed. “Oh, how I love the woods! How I 
wish this day might never end.” 

“That’s all very well. But when I remember you 
flying around the ball-room at the White Sulphur in 
all your fineries!” 

“And where, pray, were you,” replied the girl. “So 
much in demand that I used to call you the agreeable 
Rattle of the Ladies’ Club!” 

“A man can’t go moping and mooning because the 
one he wants has other strings to her bow. But I 
was glad enough to leave the place. A week of that 
philandering around women’s footstools will last me 
the remainder of my days.” 

“This is not philandering — and I’ve no footstool, 
par exemple ?” said Bell mischievously. 

“Whatever it is, I’ve no desire to change. No, I am 
not a ladies’ man. Actually, I never wrote a line of 
poetry — stop, though, I’m forgetting — I did once — last 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Ir 5 

fourteenth of February at the University — and I’ve 
not lisped in numbers since.” 

“A valentine! To some belle of Charlottesville? 
One of those charming Miss Mollies or Miss Betties, I 
suppose,” said Bell, bridling. “Why have we never 
heard of her? No doubt, the poor thing is crying her 
eyes out for another — * x 

“The girl for whom I wrote it never cries,” said 
Miles, lowering his voice. “She’s like airy Lilian, who 
clasps her tiny hands above her, laughing all she can. 
That’s the reason I smothered my poor little first at- 
tempt at verse and resisted the temptation to publish 
it in the University Magazine.” 

“Dear me ! I believe he has it in his pocket all this 
time! I’m sure that oblivion was assumed.” 

“I own up. It’s here in my pocket-book, close to 
my heart. A cold comfort, but the best I had.” 

“Let me see. Let me see!” begged she, eagerly. 
“If this were Ardennes you might have hung it on a 
tree.” 

“If you were Rosalind, who cared to read it for 
the writer’s sake.” 

“Come, come,” she said imperiously; and with some 
reluctance, he took from an inside pocket a paper thus 
inscribed : 

HER VALENTINE. 

This merry maiden, radiant, rare. 

With winsome ways and debonair, 

When sweet she smiles on me, I swear 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


116 

That Eden’s light is resting there 
Upon those lips so ripe, so fair ! 

One look at her, and e’en Old Care 
Would cease to carp and court Despair, 

Would put off dole, his trade forswear, 

Don sunny looks, make Joy his heir. 

What wonder, then, that I should wear 
Her colors and to love her dare — 

Her Valentine myself declare ? 

This merry maiden, radiant, rare ! 

‘‘Shall I tell you what I think of it?” said Bell, after 
reading the verses, and keeping close hold of the 
paper. 

‘‘Frankly — critically ?” 

‘‘Frankly; I can’t criticise. But I shall never give 
this up.” 

‘‘You’ll accept my tribute?” he asked boyishly. 
‘‘When you know you’re the only girl in the world 
who could have inspired me !” 

Bonnibel’s color flamed into her face. “I’ll make no 
rash promises,” she said, tucking, nevertheless, the 
folded paper safely within her bodice. ‘‘If by next 
Valentine’s day, you have not changed your mind — 
perhaps — ” 

‘‘Don’t be so begrudging,” he urged, pressing nearer 
to her. ‘‘Treat yourself to the luxury of royal 
giving—” 

He had forgotten all but her beauty, her half- 
inviting, half-repelling manner to him, that had be- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 117 

come a draught he needs must drink. They were a 
fair sight to look upon, those two, in the amber glory 
of the autumn sun sifting through quivering leaves — 
she, slender but rounded ♦ o maidenly maturity, her 
head blooming like an exquisite rose upon its stalk — 
he, brown and comely, bending his great shoulders 
down to whisper in her ear ! 

Long ago forsaken by the others, they had not 
observed that the vehicles sent to fetch the party 
home — their good steeds being long since comfortably 
stabled — were already filled with laughing, beckoning 
folk — their two places, only, vacant. 

Dick, sent by his grandfather to “hurry Miles and 
Bell,” came upon the recreant ones, who had been half 
screened from sight by a tangle of wild bamboo and 
grape leaves. He stopped short, reddened in spite of 
himself, and then, avoiding the eye of Miles, addressed 
himself to Bonnibel: 

“I was to say they’re waiting for you,” he said, in a 
voice sounding strangely unlike that of cordial, out- 
spoken Dick. 

Bell, startled more than she cared to show, slipped 
down from her swinging seat, and ran fleetly across 
the crisp carpet of the woods, clearing with a bound 
the little stream that divided them from the forest 
road where the carriages were in waiting. Miles, in 
the first rush of animal instinct to defend possession of 
a prize, turned upon Dick with an angry snarl. 


FLOWER DE HUNuRED. 


118 

“Because you are the lord of the manor, and I’m a. 
beggar, you’ve the right to call me to account, you 
think?” he muttered, a whir, as of wheels, within his 
brain. 

Many a time had Dick faced and quelled his uncon- 
trollable bursts of passion. But there was now a men- 
ace in Miles’ eyes that was a revelation. It made 
Dick turn sick at heart and banished the rancor from 
him. Breathing more quickly, but with outward 
calm, he said : 

“It must be an awful power inside of him that 
drives a man to words like those. Don’t answer me, 
now, please. This isn’t the time or place. There’ll 
be chances enough, when you’re ready, to pay me 
what you owe.” 

That night, when Miles was walking alone on the 
gravel of the driveway, looking up at the twinkling 
planets that gemmed the stainless sky, Dick came 
out to join him, hesitating for a moment before he 
slipped his hand within Miles’s arm. In a moment 
Miles had his big arm around Dick’s shoulder, instead, 
gripping him fiercely, and crying out in love and peni- 
tence : 

“Do you know what I’ve been thinking of, this last 
hour? Not of her, but of you — of your fidelity to me, 
of our lives together, of what you have been to me — 
and I shuddered at the gulf we stood upon to-day.” 

“Nothing can part qs,” Djck said, greatly moved. 



“ THEY WERE A FAIR SIGHT TO LOOK UPON 




FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 119 

"‘No, nothing. Whatever else I gained, I should 
always be wanting you. And if I seemed to forget 
you, it was only because I was dazzled a moment 
when the sun shone in my eyes. Another time, I 
shall turn my eyes away.” 

‘‘You’re making me a selfish sort of brute, I think,” 
Dick said, his voice trembling a little. ‘‘When I’ve 
no more right than you — ” 

‘‘That, we had better not discuss. Out here, alone 
with my cigar, I’ve come to a good many conclusions. 
And one of them is to ask you not to talk to me of 
this matter again, but to trust me. Promise, Dick, 
promise. It is my only hope of recovering my self- 
respect.” 

‘‘Miles — old man !” Dick said, edging again closer to 
him in fraternal amity. In this way, as regards the 
ending, had most of their differences been adjusted. 
Dick did not know how this time the iron had entered 
into his cousin’s soul. 

Poor Miles, who persisted in equipping Bonnibel 
with the sandals and cestus of a goddess, would have 
resented the suggestion that she was in reality a 
woman of ordinary, if fascinating, clay. Susceptible 
to kindness, of a happy, even temper, inclined to take 
sunny paths rather than shady ones, to shed tears 
easily kissed away, to make herself companionable and 
soothing to whomsoever she might chance to be with, 
to coax, to cheer, to charm — that was Bell’s nature — 


120 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


infinitely the best outfit for this work-a-day world as 
women have to meet it. After the episode narrated, 
when Miles kept his distance from her and -Dick 
drifted into more intimate devotion, she maintained 
her balance in an admirable way. Cousin Polly, who 
had feared dear Miles had been falling in love with 
Bonnibel, and who held the Virginia doctrine that all 
girls are flirts until they marry, extolled her to Grand- 
mamma; and Grandmamma, with a heavenly smile, 
hoped dear Dick would get a girl worthy of him, who- 
ever it might be. The Colonel, pleasing himself with 
romance-weaving in his study, — as a bird constructs 
her nest bit by bit, — brought every straw he could col- 
lect to aid in his pleasant task. The presence in the 
house of this brilliant apparition of young woman- 
hood made him as gallant as a younker, he declared. 
Bonnibel’s entry at breakfast time, dewy from sleep 
and bath, in crisp attire, gracious and courteous to all, 
the good-morning kiss her soft lips dropped upon his 
withered cheek, made him wonder how the old home 
had done so long without a fair young mistress. If 
Dick had pluck, by Jove, he’d never let any other 
fellow woo Bonnibel away from Flower de Hundred. 
But withal, the old gentleman kept himself religiously 
in check, since, to his notions of chivalry, ’twould 
never do to let the young lady see they had designs 
upon her liberty. 

Autumn waned, and rime had ripened the coy per- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


1 2 I 


simmons, hoarding their sugar until other fruits were 
picked, and hanging in purplish red globes upon 
branches watched by faithful worshipers. It was a 
great moment on the plantation when the hoar frost 
was heavy upon the grass, and persimmon gatherers 
might journey in open day to visit the trees nocturn- 
ally haunted by little and big negroes, awaiting their 
chance to rifle these delights. Corn shucking was 
over, the harvests stored within well-filled barns, chin- 
quapins and chestnuts were gathered, when to Ursula’s 
active spirit occurred the fancy to organize a possum- 
hunt by torch-light in the woods. “The boys,” sated 
by days of successful shooting in the stubble, forests, 
and marshes, consented to the primitive entertain- 
ment. the Colonel was kissed into giving his sanction, 
and it remained for Grandmamma and Cousin Polly, 
both of whom had been suborned by the governess to 
express disapproval of a pursuit so little becoming a 
young lady, to be won over to say — Yes. 

“You’d jes better let Miss Nutty go de pace, Ole 
Miss,” advised Phyllis, the ladies’ maid. “She’s a 
tomboy baun, fo’ shua; but dem’s de kind dat mos’ in 
general settles down all over when dey gits married an 
has chilluns of dey own.’’ 

Grandmamma, with Cousin Polly as her lieutenant, 
was undergoing the daily ceremony of giving audience 
to the slaves, when Ursula, her arm linked in Bonni- 
bel’s, came into the “charmber.” This apartment was a 


122 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


large bright room on the ground floor, with mahogany 
wardrobes, a four-poster standing on a dais requiring 
carpeted steps to mount up to it, a deep chintz easy- 
chair like a cave, in which Grandmamma sat, and a fire 
of light-wood knots spluttering on the hearth. In the 
recessed window seats, maids were at Work making the 
garments Cousin Polly had cut out. On stools near 
the fire were perched three or four unwilling aco- 
lytes learning to sew, one of them at times falling 
asleep off her cricket into the ashes, from which she 
was reclaimed and thumped on the head by the brisk 
hand of Phyllis, wearing a brass thimble warranted 
to do execution of the most awakening character. 

Nutty’s request was kept in abeyance by an inter- 
view in progress between the authorities and Poll 
(Paul) Todd, the blacksmith, and his wife. Paul was a 
foolish-faced giant with a small head, and low brow 
shelving backward under a dense mat of wool. The' 
girls remembered him as the hero of a “baptisin’ ” they 
had attended during the summer at a pretty pond in, 
the woods. Brother Jones, the preacher of the occa- 
sion, stood waist-deep in the water, adjuring, exhort- 
ing, encouraging the converts, who one by one waded, 
in, were seized, submerged, and sent ashore amid the 
ringing echoes of a hymn of piercing sweetness from 
the congregation gathered on the bank. Poll, the last 
to present himself, stood staring before him with di- 
lated eyes. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


123 


“Come on!” roared out Brer’ Jones. “Don’t stan’ 
dere tremblin’ on de brink o’ blessedness. Come on, 
poor sinner, wot’s yer feard uv?” 

“I’se afeerd o’ dat air pesky little mocassin on de 
rock behin’ you,” stammered Poll ; and with a yell, a 
shudder, and a bound, the preacher gathered his flap- 
ping robes about him and splashed ashore. 

Poll had recently married a termagant, Louisa, under 
circumstances of novel interest. Louisa had waited 
to secure a new black “alapaky” gown, and a black 
bonnet and crape veil, before having the “funeral” 
(i.e. a sermon to the memory of her former lord) 
preached by Brother Jones, whose oratory on these 
occasions was esteemed by the quarter to be of an 
agreeably “rousin’ ” quality. About a month after his 
actual interment, therefore, the friends of Louisa’s hus- 
band, with the disconsolate widow, resorted to meet- 
ing one Sunday, and there indulged in a full measure 
of groaning, shouting, and tears, during the progress of 
Brer’ Jones’ eulogy of the departed saint. Hardly had 
the sermon concluded, and the audience straightened 
itself up, when Brer’ Jones advanced to the front and 
requested the parties contracting “matteramony” to 
please step forward. The widow was the first to rise. 
Throwing back her crape veil, she looked about her 
with a commanding air, and, soon perceiving the object 
of her search, signed to him to come forth. Poll, 
emerging supremely sheepish from the crowd, shambled 


124 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


up the aisle, and Louisa, a waspish little woman reach- 
ing just above his elbow, fastened upon his arm — nor 
released it till the couple were made one. No expla- 
nation was given of this telescoping of religious rites, 
but the announcement by the br/de that she “giv 
Brer’ Jones a shote to preach Sam’s funeral, and he 
dun the weddin’ too for a bushel o’ sweet potatoes.” 

Poll took Louisa back to his cabin, and with her a 
comfortable array of worldly goods and live stock. 
But she kept him in perpetual hot water. Their spats 
were the life of the chroniques scandaleuses of Flower 
de Hundred. In vain Mr. Sampson, Cousin Polly, 
Grandmamma, and finally the Colonel, interfered. 
Louisa continued to treat Poll outrageously. Her 
last exploit, now under discussion, appeared to have 
reached the culminating point. 

“Louisa, I insist that you let Paul tell his story,” 
said the little Madam, from her throne ; and Poll, blub- 
bering at intervals, and displaying a deep hollow ap- 
parently burnt into the wool upon his crown, began : 

“I war des havin’ a mug o’ simmon beer, Miss, wot I 
made myself. I fotch dem simmonses, en I brung 
’em, en I brew de beer, en Louizy she so mad at me 
case I went widout her to de barbecue, she sassed me 
awful, en she up wid a shovel o’ hot coals en dumps 
’em a-top my ha-ad — ” Here Poll’s feelings overcame 
him, and he swabbed his eyes with a red bandana. 

“Laws, Ole Miss, didn’t hurt dat niggah one bit,” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


125 


snapped Louisa. “He des stood dar en bellered, wid 
his wool a-frizzlin’, he did, and nevah offaw’d to git 
shet o’ dem dar coals tel Mr. Sampson cum’ en seed 
’em !” 

“Louisa!’’ said Madam Throckmorton, in what, for 
her, were awful tones. They silenced the culprit, as 
also the spasmodic giggling of the seamstresses. 

When, with a pledge from Louisa that she would 
dispense in future with this particular method of con- 
jugal reproof, the happy couple were dismissed, Nutty 
sat down at Grandmamma’s elbow under the eaves of 
the big chair where she had received many a lesson 
in the fine arts of needlework, 

“Fern stitch, finny stitch, new-stitch, and chain stitch, 

Spanish stitch, rosemary stitch, herring-bone, and maw-stitch.” 

“Now, Granny dear,’’ she said. “Let us go ’pos- 
sum-hunting this once more, and I’ll never ask again. 
Bonnibel has promised to go, too, and you may be 
sure we’ll run into no mischief.’’ 

“Well, once more,’’ said the old lady. “I was just 
sending Phyllis for you, my dear. There’s a letter 
from your Aunt Eleanor.’’ 

Nutty’s face flamed. She looked ready to burst 
into tears. 

“Oh, don’t say it’s to make me go to stay with 
her!’’ she cried. “Dear, dear Granny, it would break 
my heart to leave you and Flower de Hundred.’’ 

“But consider, my child. Mrs. Courtland is your 


126 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


mother’s only sister. She has the means and the 
desire to give you more advantages than you could 
possibly have here. They are, it appears, just going 
to sail for Europe to spend a year v/ and she wants you 
to share the education, there, of her own two girls.” 

‘‘Oh, Grandmamma, there must be something 
wrong inside of me,” said the girl earnestly; “but I 
can’t feel towards Aunt Eleanor as I should. She was 
so cold to us while Mamma lived, I’ve always heard ; 
and she took no notice of my existence till you’d had 
me here for a year or two. My one visit to her two 
years ago I never can forget. That great fine country 
house on the Hudson, everything so formal and so 
different from our life here ! Aunt Eleanor seemed to 
be always apologizing to her husband for the South. 
The governess and the girls were always criticising my 
way of speaking, and looking at me as if they had to 
put up their lorgnettes to find me. They had such 
queer notions of us — and Mr. Courtland said things I 
never could forgive — I felt every drop of my Throck- 
morton blood bubble in my veins — he’s so narrow, and 
worships his money so. I believe it’s he who has 
spoiled Aunt Eleanor. When I came back to the 
plantation I jumped for joy.” 

‘‘My poor, foolish little girl!” said Grandmamma, 
stroking her head with infinite gentleness. ‘‘What 
can I say to you ? Dear Richard has left it all to me. 
It’s my duty not to let you stand in your own light.” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


127 


‘‘You are my light, Granny — you and Cousin Rich- 
ard,” cried the child. “I love every brick of the 
house, every twig of the trees. Don’t, don’t, don’t 
banish me; and I’ll be grateful all my life. What’s 
more, I’ll study hard with Mademoiselle, and beg Mr. » 
Crabtree’s pardon, and — ” 

‘‘Don’t promise too much, dear child,” said the 
little lady smiling. “There, run away, now; here’s old 
Sabra coming with eggs to sell, and a new chapter of 
grievances to pour out. I’ll talk it over with your 
Cousin Richard, and see what can be done.” 

Nutty, wild with delight, ran bareheaded out-of- 
doors, and, summoning Vic, danced like a mote in the 
sunshine of the joyous autumn day. 

“The question is, have we the right?” said Grand- 
mamma, sighing. “The child would leave a sad 
gap in the house. I can’t let her see it, but there’s 
no doubt her estimate of the Courtlands is correct. 
Although Nutty’s father was only Richard’s second 
cousin once removed— we were very fond of him and 
he of us — and it isn’t as if Ursula were altogether 
poor. Richard says he’ll have a tidy sum laid up for 
her by the time she comes of age — not much, but an 
independence for the girl.” 

“I’ve no patience with Eleanor Courtland, and 
that’s a fact,” said Miss Polly. “She’s a New Orleans 
woman born, and has turned her nose up at us ever 
since she married in the North. As to those second- 


128 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


hand fans and trumpery dress patterns she sends down 
here to Nutty, you’d think she took us for a parcel of 
Ojibbeways. Nutty shows her good sense by wanting 
to stay just where she is; and if I were Richard I 
wouldn’t let her budge.” 

Nutty’s April clouds had vanished when, after 
night-fall, the ’possum hunters set out on their inglori- 
ous but entertaining quest. The girls, wearing short 
dresses, with scarlet sashes knotted around their 
waists, and caps of scarlet wool set sidewise on their 
locks, looked like huntress-fairies. They were accom- 
panied by the two young men, and a cousin or so from 
the supply always on hand at the house, and preceded 
by Yellow Jock with his whimpering dogs and a 
couple of negro boys carrying torches of fat pine. 
The glare of red light between drifting columns of 
black smoke, lit up the tracery of boughs overhead 
with brilliant effect, causing the torch-bearers to 
resemble gnomes, and the rest of the party conspira- 
tors bent on uncanny enterprise. When Yellow Jock, 
at the end of a half-mile tramp through brake and 
brier, loosed his dogs from the leash, they darted 
ahead, and soon proclaimed a “find.” Following the 
trail, our hunters saw the two dogs sitting on their 
haunches at the foot of a slender sapling, waking the 
echoes of wood and swamp with joyous barks. A 
torch, swung under the tree, disclosed clinging to an 
upper branch and looking down at his pursuers with 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


129 


intelligent eyes, his hair ruffled with fright, a small rat- 
tailed animal, with a sharp nose. 

“Golly, dat’s a gran’pa possum,” cried one of the 
negro lads. “He des bulgin’ out wid fat, Unk Jock.” 

“Gimme dat axe, boy,” said Yellow Jock, and with a 
single expert blow at the root, the little persimmon 
tree, with its double burden of fruit and game, fell 
crashing to the earth. The dogs with a jump fastened 
upon their prey. 

“Git along wid yer nonsense, gals,” cried Yellow 
Jock, beating them off and administering a blow to 
the victim that stunned it instantly. The bright eyes 
were glazed and the creature lay limp and pitiful as 
Jock picked it up and consigned it to one of the ne- 
groes, the dogs with mouths watering as they watqhed 
his shoulder where it hung. 

“Ain’ mor’n a quarter dead, Missy,” the old man ex- 
plained to Bonnibel. “Ef I was to nuss him by de 
cabin fire, he’d jump up peart nough, ’en make tracks 
fo’ de swamp. But des as long’s he tinks dem dogs 
a-watchin’ him, he pertend to be deader’n a do’ nail. 
Dat’s possum natur, honey; dey’s dat ’ceetful, I hain’ 
nebber see nutin’ but a ’ooman as can equil ’em for 
foolin’ men folks. You, Sam, wot you larfin at, ’n 
swingin’ dat ar torch so’s you mos’ sot Marse Dick’s 
coat-tails afire?” 

Sam, who had some keen personal relish of the joke 
at the expense of the beguiling sex, continued to 
9 


130 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


chuckle and show his ivories, until the dogs discovered 
another opossum, small and timid, lying flat on the 
bough of a maple. In his excitement Sam laid down 
the first prize upon a root, and Ursula, happening to 
look that way, saw the “gran’pa possum” stiffening 
up into a semblance of his former self, and glancing 
cautiously around preparatory to escape. The alarm 
given, the fugitive was incontinently seized by the 
tail; and Jock, whose imagination was already reveling 
in a vision of a toothsome roast bedded in “taters,” 
with corn pone and coffee to follow, bestowed on 
Sambo an admonitory buffet. 

The baby opossum seemed to be possessed of an 
almost human ingenuity in baffling their efforts to 
shake it down — Dick not wishing to sacrifice the limb 
of a fine tree. He would loosen first one leg, then 
another, then a third, and when apparently about to 
fall exhausted to the ground, annexed himself by the 
tail, and hung, as tightly welded as before. When he 
had fooled them to the top of his bent, the little de- 
ceiver turned and ran off like a flash, but unfortu- 
nately, encountering Sambo in a crotch of the tree, 
took by mistake the downward course, and was seized 
by the dogs on reaching terra firma. 

“Let him off,” cried Bonnibel and Ursula. But 
Yellow Jock had already decided his fate by a sting- 
ing blow upon the head. 

“Now, shall we go home?” said Bonnibel; and, as 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


I3i 

the procession again took up the line of march, she 
walked with Miles, following the others. 

“How weird this light makes the beautiful forest 
look!” she said. “I seem to see crouching forms in 
every thicket, here especially, on the edge of the 
swamp, where the trees are gray and distorted with 
age, and those long vines hang down and the ‘old 
man’s beard’ clothes every bough.’’ 

It was in truth a dreary bit of woodland they were 
crossing, and involuntarily the girl drew close to her 
companion. 

“I hope you have found our aboriginal sport worth 
your effort,” said Miles. “It was, at any rate, exceed- 
ingly picturesque.” 

“I should not succeed as a hunter. The spectacle 
of those poor little wretches, bringing their ingenuity 
into competition with man’s craft, filled me with sym- 
pathy for them. But then, I can’t resist the impulse 
to side with any living thing at bay. I never read of 
a prisoner’s escape — any prisoner — without feeling 
glad that justice is eluded.” 

“Fortunately, the reins of government are put into 
other hands than yours. For me, I can’t pretend 
to understand sentimentalism with offenders. If a 
man has outraged law, by law he ought to suffer; and 
the less palaver over it, the better.” 

“Oh, what’s that?” cried Bell. 

“I heard nothing.” 


I3 2 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“It was like a sigh — or a moan — or both,” she whis- 
pered, shuddering. The path they were following, 
faintly lighted by starlight and the receding torches, 
was full of moss-grown roots and hummocks, and so 
narrow at the margin of the swamp as to compel them 
to walk in single file. Bell, ashamed to acknowledge 
it, had been seized with nervous horror of the place. 
The sound she had heard did not reassure her, and 
when Miles, falling back, stopped for a moment to 
light his pipe and she saw, lurking behind a tree and 
nearly touching him, a man’s form, she was fairly terri- 
fied. 

“Make haste, make haste,” she said, trembling in 
every limb, “or we shall never catch up with them.” 

Panic lending wings to her feet she darted ahead, 
Miles following, all unconscious of what impelled her. 

“What a swift Atalanta you are,” he said, overtak- 
ing her at last. “You caught me by surprise in giving 
me this breather.” 

“Oh, Miles — that man — that dreadful man!” she 
panted, clinging to his arm. “In the swamp — close to 
you — when you stopped — ” 

“My dear Bell, you are dreaming,” he said, startled 
by her evident distress. 

“Oh! no, no! he was there— I saw by the light of 
your match — plainly — the negro — I thought he would 
hurt you, and I didn’t dare to scream.” 

Bell made a brave fight for self-control, but weak 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 133 

nature overpowered her, and she burst into a flood of 
hysterical tears. 

“Bonnibel, darling,” whispered Miles, clasping her in 
his arms. “How can you be afraid, when I am here? 
I, who love you so that I’d give my life to save you 
from one pang.” So fierce was his joy at feeling that 
she did not resist his touch, but rather trembled sigh- 
ing to his heart, he could not find words to speak. 
One moment he held her so, and then back through 
the forest gloom floated the ring of Dick’s voice in a 
yodeling call they had used as a summons to each 
other from boyhood. 

The two started apart, and stood with violently 
beating hearts. Miles felt as if a gun-shot had gone 
through him. 

“Wont you .... wont somebody go back . . . . 
and look after .... him .... that man?” Bell said, 
with a mighty effort to steady her utterance. 

“When we have seen you safe at home. It is not 
far from here to the house,” he answered, and the 
sound of his voice struck on his consciousness with 
curious effect. It was as if some one far away were 
speaking through a storm. 

“Let us hurry, then,” she answered, turning her face 
from him. 


CHAPTER V. 


“ But when comes winter 
With hail and storm. 

And red fire roaring, 

And ingle warm — 

Sing first sad going 
Of friends that part, 

Then sing glad meeting 
And my love’s heart.” 

CHRISTMAS in old Virginia! All was in readiness 
at Flower de Hundred for the entertainment of as 
large a party as could be disposed of within its walls. 

In every chimney, high-piled hickory was snapping 
defiance of Jack Frost, for to the surprise of the 
household a light snow had fallen, powdering woods 
and fields, crowning fences and gables, and lending a 
strange charm to the green of magnolias, yews, and 
hollies on the lawns. 

The ladies of the house, relaxing their work of prepa- 
ration, went from floor to floor admiring the results. 
Through the open doors upon the corridors upstairs, 
bed-rooms displayed plump shrines in speckless dra- 
pery, bright fires, and that general air of nicety it 
seems a pity to disturb. Below, chairs, couches, 
curtains, books, hearths, vases, each had received its 
final touch from beautifying fingers. In the store- 
134 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


135 


room and still-room, perhaps, had been reached the 
high water mark of old time housekeeping. For days 
past, the womenkind had been whisking about with 
flushed cheeks, sticky fingers, and garments distilling 
odors of the East, checking with stern rebuke all 
overtures to intimate approach. Bonnibel, who ex- 
celled in making high art canopies of lace-work icing 
dropped from a paper cone, had executed the decora- 
tions of a Christmas cake that was a wonder of its 
kind. Ursula, idle and fitful in her ministry, inclined 
to dart about, to taste, to comment, to investigate, 
had been condemned to blanch almonds, which she 
afterwards pounded with rose-water in a marble mor- 
tar — on the whole, a rather fascinating toil. Little 
Grandmamma, informed peremptorily that her duty 
was to “sit on a cushion and look like a queen,” 
begged for leave to cut out of note paper the Toby 
frills used to finish ham-bones and deck candle 
sockets. As for Cousin Polly, her eye and hand were 
everywhere. Her least care was to ascertain in person 
that a supply of her own pot-pourri scent-bags, quince 
seed bandoline, and rose paste for chapped hands was 
distributed in the chambers of the guests; and she 
herself hung the towel-racks with damask naperies, and 
stuck the cushions full of pins. 

Who was expected? Oh, for such a week of fes- 
tivity, cousins were convened from Henrico, from New 
Kent, from Gloucester, from Goochland, from Albe- 


136 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


marie, from Orange, from Fluvanna, from Fairfax — 
people who knew what was good for them always 
accepted an invitation to Flower de Hundred! They 
would journey thither by boat, in family coaches, or, 
if near enough, on horseback, with the usual array of 
grooms and valets to carry bandboxes and bags. One 
rosy daughter of a neighboring squire arrived, that 
year, seated behind her father on a pillion, with both 
arms clasped around his portly waist. 

Ursula loved the buzz and soft confusion of the 
filling of the house. Ladies chatting, maids unpack- 
ing, running hither and thither, pinning, tying, compli- 
menting, over all such a smell of Christmas greens 
brought out by the summer warmth ! 

When, on Christmas Eve — their number was well 
nigh complete — the yellow coach from Honey Hall 
drew up upon the drive-way, everybody felt relieved. 
It would have been an affaire manqute without the 
presence of Tom and Tabby; and Tom had been 
threatened with an attack upon his chest, which made 
it doubtful whether Vashti would allow him to take 
the air. But here they were, at last. Down came the 
creaking carriage steps, and out came Tom, muffled 
and top-coated beyond the chance of recognition from 
his nearest friend. The tyrant had even endued him 
with a pair of blue-glass spectacles. After the master 
descended Mistress Tabby, ample and beaming, and 
lastly the inevitable Vashti, glum and upright, bearing 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


*37 


upon her arm a basket containing vials of medicine 
and spoons. 

“Howdye, howdye, and a Merry Christmas, all,” 
chirped Tabby; ‘‘Tom can’t speak, poor thing, till he 
gets his muffler off. Vashti suspects a leetle touch of 
quinsey, and if there’s anything goes hard with Tom — 
now Tom dear, don’t you struggle so, or you’ll never 
get out of all those — and whatever you do, don’t get a 
check of — there’s nothing Vashti dreads so much for 
you as a check of perspiration.” 

“Hang it all!” spluttered “Tom dear” angrily, 
emerging from his lendings as red as a boiled lobster. 
“Colonel, these women between ’em would like to 
stop me breathin’. They’ve had all the windows 
down — confound it, — Vashti, what you want with me, 
girl — aint you tortured me enough?” 

“Time for your medicine, Marse Tom,” said the 
imperturbable, presenting at his elbow a spoonful of 
black dose. Mr. Hazleton made a face. Vashti stood 
motionless. There was no escape. Down went the 
medicine, and, going the wrong way, threw the un- 
fortunate victim into a paroxysm of choking while 
Vashti beat him on the back. 

“There now, Tom dear,” said his placid lady, when 
peace had been restored. “That comes of being ex- 
citable. Dear, dear, how natural everybody looks. 
Howdye Saul, howdye Chris and Jim and Phyllis — 
it always feels so good to get back to Flower de Hun- 


138 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

dred — the reason we’re so late the snow balled under 
the horses’ feet and made them slip, and Vashti 
thought we’d better not drive fast — all’s well that 
ends well, though. I’ve a pair of bantams for you, 
Polly Lightfoot, that’ll make you feel ashamed of 
yours — just a drop of apple toddy, Saul — we always 
say nobody can beat Saul in apple-tod — no, thank you, 
Colonel, I’m quite warm enough — so nice to see this 
splendid fire. Why, Dick, you’re looking as happy as 
a prince — no wonder if the little bird says right — well, 
well, I spare your blushes. What’s this I hear about 
Miles going down to stay at Timberneck — an owl in 
an ivy-bush, Tom says he’s like. Tom’s full of jokes, 
you know. Coming for Christmas, I suppose? — That’s 
good, it wouldn’t be half a ball, if Miles weren’t here 
to turn me in the reel. Said I to Tom, depend upon 
it this is nothing but a whim. I sent Miles down a 
head-cheese when Caesar was going to the mill — 
though Sally Johnson isn’t a bad cook. Well, well, 
he’ll tire of single blessedness, they always do; but 
I’ll vow I’ve looked round and don’t see a girl that’s 
good enough for Miles in our neighborhood — why 
aren’t there two Bonnibels? — here she comes, the 
beauty, with a sprig of holly in her hair — and there’s 
Cousin John and Sophia, and the Major and his girls, 
and the Thompsons of Belair — dear, dear, dear, how 
many pleasant people — my head’s quite turned with 
pleasure! Lucky for Tom that Christmas comes but 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 139 

once a year to unsettle his old wife — now isn’t it, Tom 
dear?” 

Contrary to expectation, Miles did not present him- 
self for the first evening of festivities, and loud was 
the lamenting over his absence. After dinner, the 
company broke up into little groups, the younger 
members volunteering to entertain their elders by a 
series of charades, dumb-crambo, and tableaux vivants. 
Among the latter, were the time-honored “Game of 
' Life,” and “Rebecca and Rowena.” Rebecca, always 
popular with brunettes, was gotten up with plenty of 
turkey red, old China crepe shawls, and the jewelry of 
everybody in the house pinned and hung over the 
self-denying Jewess, wherever practicable! Rowena, 
equally liked by blondes as offering an opportunity to 
wear sky-blue and to let down one’s back hair, smiled 
broadly in the act of receiving Rebecca’s casket, but 
was much applauded when the folding doors were 
shut. Then they had “Magical Music,” supplied by 
Mr. Crabtree with his flute; “Stage Coach,” and “Hide 
and-go-Seek.” A tail of young people, headed by Ur- 
sula, ran up and down the stairs and corridors — peep- 
ing through Christmas garlands — crouching in the deep 
window-seat upon the landing, where the panes of glass 
bore many a name inscribed with diamond rings by the 
gay idlers of succeeding generations — screaming with 
laughter when caught, till every echo of the staunch old 
house came from its hiding-place to repeat the fun ! 


140 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


At eleven o’clock Saul went through the rooms with 
a silver salver displaying cut-glass tumblers of egg- 
nog — other servants following with silver baskets of 
cake tasted by the matrons and indorsed with nods as 
meaning as Lord Burleigh’s. Just before midnight, 
the hall door opened to let in, with the rush of frosty 
air and glimpses of starlight and snow-tipped boughs, 
two stalwart wood-cutters bearing between them the 
huge segment of a forest monarch, long seasoned in 
the woodhouse. This was the Yule-log, always 
rolled into place by the men of the family upon the 
iron dogs before old Guy Throckmorton’s fire-back 
with the twisted monogram and crest, and lighted 
with a brand from last year’s log. 

As the flame from a bed of red embers leaped up 
and licked the moss and lichens from the Yule-log, the 
master of the house, with his beautiful old mother on 
his arm, stood on the hearth-rug watching it. Sur- 
rounded by kinsfolk, friends, and beneficiaries, not one 
but might have borne witness to some act of his loyal 
generosity ; with a conscience void of offense, with his 
fondest hopes for some of his best beloved on the eve 
of fruition, he looked proud and glad ; and yet those 
who read him aright saw a shadow upon the good 
man’s brow, as, according to annual custom, wheeling 
about to face his guests, he cleared his throat to 
speak : 

“My dear kinsmen and friends,” said Richard 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 141 

Throckmorton, “this is the time at which those who 
have been wont to meet around my hearth to cele- 
brate the most beautiful festival of our Christian year 
have always let me be their spokesman. Since we 
last gathered here, thank God, there have been no 
breaks in our circle to mar the joy of this reunion. 
My own cup has been sweetened by blessings I have 
ill-deserved. My dear grandson, Dick, and my adopted 
grandson, Miles, have finished their University course 
and come back to me with credit honestly achieved by 
manly purpose, and ready to begin a life which I hope 
and believe will make of them good citizens, good 
masters, honorable bearers of a name that has never 
known dishonor. In wishing for you all, from the bot- 
tom of my heart, a ‘Merry Christmas’ and a ‘Happy 
New Year,’ I have something, in return, to ask of 
you — I want your best wishes — come Dick — come 
Bonnibel, my dear, — here, let me hold a hand of each 
of you — for these two young people who have promised 
each other to make me happy by becoming man and 
wife. My friends .... as you see .... my heart’s 
too full to say more. I present to you Miss Amabel 
Leigh, the future mistress of my grandson’s home.’’ 

As the Colonel spoke, there had been a start — a rus- 
tle around the ring of lookers-on, a swaying to and fro 
of heads eager to lose no detail of the scene — Dick, 
proud, alert, a love-light in his blue eyes that beauti- 
fied his face, stood on his grandfather’s right — Bonni- 


142 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


bel, her eyes dropped, the bloom deepened to carmine 
in her lovely cheeks, nestled, as if frightened, on the left 
arm the old man had thrown around her shoulders! 

Only Ursula chanced to see that, at the moment the 
Colonel had begun to speak, the door leading into the 
study had opened and Miles had come in and stood 
pale and silent on the outskirts of the group. The lit- 
tle girl repressed an exclamation of dismay, and as an 
understanding of what her childish heedlessness had 
failed hitherto to see flashed upon her mind, she fol- 
lowed the impulse of her heart and glided to his side. 
In the confusion that ensued of laughter, chat, con- 
gratulations, and kisses, all pressing around Bonnibel 
who remained tightly clinging to the Colonel’s arm, 
nobody observed Nutty, who had eyes but for one 
darkling face, looking up into it, pleading for leave to 
suffer in silence with his grief. 

It was over at last ! Miles had wrung Dick’s hand, 
had taken Bonnibel’s chill fingers in his clasp, had 
been embraced by his grandfather with a muttered 
“God bless you, my own lad,” that went far to warm- 
ing his sad heart — had exchanged greetings and pleas- 
antries with the guests as best he could. He could 
bear the strain no longer. When the clock in the hall 
chimed midnight, he left them and went out into the 
darkness. Here, again, all was jollity. The Colonel, 
pleasing himself by planning surprises for every one, 
had ordered a bonfire to be kindled. Around it gath- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


M3 


ered black faces lit by the ruddy glow, the number 
swelled by arrivals from the quarter, by twos, threes, 
and in groups, whistling or singing — and whoopings 
came from afar in token that laggards were on the 
way. Then sounds were heard of hurrying feet, of a 
“pat and dance" beginning, in which gradually all 
would join till the rich swell of the accompanying 
chorus, blending in natural unison, should seem like 
one vast organ pipe, unstopped to pour its volume on 
the air. 

Miles, knowing not which way to turn, stood, his 
back against a tree, gazing at the lighted fagade of the 
house. It was like the fairy palace of his childish 
fancy, at which the wandering, disinherited prince 
arrives in search of adventure. His adventure was 
now as a tale that had been told, with “finis" written 
at the end. His disastrous love dream had worked 
out his virtual exclusion from his home. No, not his 
home— Dick’s — Dick, who was master of all he loved 
and coveted — Miles, an outsider gazing with hungry 
eyes at a banquet he might not taste. 

On the day following the night-walk through the 
woods with Bonnibel, he had told his grandfather of 
his love and his temptation — of all, in fact, but her 
apparent leaning of fancy toward himself. He had 
besought and won leave to go down to Timberneck, 
and “camp out" in the old house, where the Colonel 
had always kept a man and his wife in charge, “as 


144 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


a temporary measure only,” the fond elder used 
to say. 

In his solitude, Miles had reasoned out that her 
turning to him had been the mere seeking of young 
tendrils to curl around the nearest object. He knew 
himself to be a restless, undisciplined fellow, ill pre- 
pared to settle in any bonds ; one who would make no 
woman’s happiness till some of what was in him had 
found a vent. 

So far, good! He had come home for Christmas 
Eve, informed of the new bond between Dick and his 
sweetheart, who had persuaded herself that what she 
now did would make everybody happy; but at the 
sight of them together, a fury of jealousy had assailed 
and mastered him. And the tempest was not stilled. 

Then the great hall door swung open heavily. Out 
into the night came, in a burst of warmth and radi- 
ance, the figures of the guests, wrapped and bundled, 
to group on the “back porch,” the Colonel appearing 
last with Bonnibel and Dick. The light of the torches 
carried by the negroes, who, advancing, closed in a 
ring around that side of the house, fell full upon the 
old man’s white head and noble features. At once 
arose shouts, “three cheers, for Ole Marsel” with a re- 
sponse of deafening cordiality. 

“Now boys,” said the Colonel, coming to the front, 
“it’s cold work speechifying here; and I’ve but few 
words to say. When I’ve done saying them, Mr. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


*45 

Sampson will take care you’re supplied with stuff for a 
first class barbecue. For, as I’m pretty sure you 
suspect, I’ve sent for you to-night and am going 
to let you have the barbecue because something 
has happened that I want the whole plantation 
to enjoy.” 

“Bress Jesus!” “Lawd, send down marcy!” here 
irrelevantly put in one or two old crones who, as the 
Colonel began, had closed their eyes and stood rock- 
ing their bodies back and forth. 

“The time must come,” continued their master, 
“and in the nature of things can’t be very far away, 
when somebody else must live here and direct you in 
my place.” 

“No indeedy!” “Nebber say die, Ole Marse.” 
“Aint got tired o’ presen’ company!” were some of 
the flattering interruptions to this statement. 

“Well, boys, I’m in no hurry to go,” said the Colo- 
nel. “But when I do, you all. know that your Master 
Dick will succeed me. A good son, a good friend, 
makes a good master; and I don’t think you’ll be 
the worse when he takes the reins into his hands. 
He’s grown up among you, you’ve loved him and 
made much of him. He thinks of you as friends 
who, after his family, should be first to know when 
any good luck befalls him. Master Dick, therefore, 
wishes me to tell you all that he’s been fortunate 
enough to get Miss Bonnibel to promise to be his 

IO 


146 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


wife — stop ! wait one minute, and you’ve my leave to 
make all the noise you can. I want, before I stop, to 
bespeak for my grandson and his beautiful young 
bride the same love and loyalty you’ve yielded me. 
If there’s any ill-will in the Flower de Hundred plan- 
tation toward the family at the Great House, I’ve yet 
to hear of it. You’re an orderly, decent, faithful set 
of fellows, and you’ve got as nice wives and daughters 
as any on the river. For myself, for my dear old 
mother, and for those who are to follow us, I say 
good-night and Merry Christmas to you all.” Miles, 
with his back against the oak, felt stunned by the 
rousing cheers that sent wave after wave of sound 
upon the night. He saw Dick take Bonnibel by the 
hand to lead her forward and stand there in the 
torch-light — and then, like a lost soul shut out of 
Heaven, he turned and fled away. 

“Marse Miles,” said a piping little voice; and a 
claw-like hand tugged at his coat. 

Miles turned. He was at some distance from the 
house, striding with set lips whither he knew not. 
The little darkey had been running at his heels. In 
his hand a lighted torch bobbed up and down. 

“What do you want? Why do you bother me?” 
he said roughly. 

“I’se Chris, Marse Miles, Aun’ Sabra’s gran’child. 
Daddy Jack sont me, sah. He say I war to fin’ you at 
de Gret Hoos, en ax you to come dar right away.” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


147 


“Come there — where?” asked the young man impa- 
tiently. 

“Daddy Jack’s cabin, sah. I’se got to go wid you, 
sah, en carry de tawch ; en, Marse Miles, I so afeard.” 

The little fellow was shivering with cold and ter- 
ror. Miles, who could not bear to see suffering in any 
shape, answered him more kindly : 

“Here, you go along back to where the fire is, and 
give me the torch.” 

“Please, sah, I’se bown ’ to go,” shivered Chris. 
“Daddy Jack, he cum after me to Mammy’s cabin en 
sont me on de arrant. He say I was to tell Marse 
Miles ’twar a arrant o’ life an def’. I’se bin lookin’ 
fur, you, sah, ’en jus’ cotch a sight o’ you under dat 
ar tree wen you tuck to clippin’ out dis a way, ’en I 
run arter you.” 

“Well, here goes,” said Miles, anything at the 
moment seeming to him relief. “Don’t be afraid, 
Chris; I’ll keep close at your heels, and the powers of 
evil are more likely to think you one of their own 
goblins, than to go for you, I’m sure. Skip, now, you 
little rascal.” 

It was not unusual for the members of the family to 
be summoned to visit a cabin in cases of sudden 
illness; but Daddy Jack’s case had in it a smack of 
the eerie, offering an outlet to the mad humor domi- 
nating Miles at the moment. Entering the monoto- 
nous arcades of the pine-wood, their way became as 


I4S 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


much isolated from the chances of human interruption 
as if in desert wilds. A dreary path by day, by 
night it was always shunned. 

Jack’s cabin, built of lichen-covered logs the inter- 
stices filled with moss, cowered on the edge of a 
pond of copper-tinted water. Behind it rose blighted 
pines, some having died of overcrowding, old age, or 
want of nutriment, others having been blasted by 
lightning, and leaning across each other in chevaux 
de frise. At the approach of footsteps to the spot, a 
night bird perched upon the roof-peak uttered a 
warning note and flew away. At once, a light 
gleamed from a loop-hole beside the door, and the 
voice of Daddy Jack was heard to call: 

“Is that you, Chris?” 

“I’ve come with Chris, Daddy Jack,” said Miles 
carelessly. “Hurry up and let us in; or, what’s better, 
send this boy home to his mammy before his eyes 
drop quite out of his head with fear.” 

“Run home now, Chris,” said the old man benevo- 
lently, as he unbarred and opened the heavy door of 
cross-laid timbers. Chris needed no second bidding. 
Dropping his torch, that fell into the water and went 
out with a hiss, the little fellow tore along the path 
of pine needles, more fleet of foot and willing than 
before or after during the span of his mortal expe- 
rience. The young man, in the vigor of his athletic 
youth, would have laughed to scorn the idea of per- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


149 


sonal violence from the African, for whom, physically, 
he was so much more than a match. Nor did the 
magician’s powers, accredited to Jack by the negroes, 
impress him with respect. But as the ape-like figure, 
a tame crow sitting upon his shoulder, stood there 
confronting him with a curiously sinister gaze, Miles 
felt a trifle shaken from his balance of cool indiffer- 
ence. 

“Well, old man, what do you want with me?” he 
said, lightly stepping across the gloomy threshold, “I 
suppose this is your idea of a pleasant way for a man 
to spend the night before Christmas. If you’ve any- 
thing to say, out with it. I’m not one to stand tricks, 
remember.” 

“I’se a pretty good han’ at rememberin’, Marse 
Miles,” said the negro, assuming meekness, as he 
carefully shut and barred the door again. “An ef hit 
hadri bin time , you wouldn’ nevah bin called to darken 
my door-step, sah. But dere’s somebody upstars in 
de lof’ dat’s got to see you. Many an’ many’s de day 
he axed fur to hev you come, but hit warn’t time. 
But I reckon hit’s time now — oh, yes, I reckon hit’s 
time now. Jes wait a minit, twel I see.” 

Darting at Miles a glance in which hatred and tri- 
umph were plainly blended, he scrambled up a ladder 
leading to the loft. Left alone, the young man 
looked about him with a growing consciousness that 
he had let himself be led into something like a trap. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


150 

Stooping to the hearth, he picked up a short club 
made of the root of a marsh sapling, of a pattern such 
as Jack had long been in the habit of selling at the 
boat wharf. In the gleam of embers banked in wood 
ashes, he saw that he had disturbed a blind fox-hound 
from his sleep, and at the same moment became 
creepingly conscious of another — deadlier presence. 
In a basket swathed in woolen rags, near where 
his hand had touched, an ominous writhing was per- 
ceptible. 

“Good Heavens !” cried Miles, recoiling, to give the 
hearthside a wide berth. He had forgotten the witch- 
doctor’s home companions, which he many a time had 
seen Jack pack and handle like coils of rubber hose. 
At the same moment, something like an animated shoe 
brush crawled across his foot. It was a domesticated 
hedgehog; but at its touch Miles felt his skin turn to 
goose-flesh. 

“The fiend take his Happy Family!’’ he thought. 
“It is only the man scared by a ‘rattler,’ who loses his 
grip like this.” 

The hut, lighted by a wick floating in melted lard, 
owned little furniture save a moss-lined bunk with 
blankets, a table, and some stools. After Jack’s pets, 
including a land-turtle, its shell curiously inscribed 
and declared to be a thousand years old — the negroes 
most feared the sorcerer’s display upon the shelves half 
covering his walls. All that in wood or swamp Na- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


151 

ture could produce in the way of distorted growths, 
were here assorted. Strange roots, leprous fungi, odd 
mosses, nests, boughs, noose-like vines were grouped 
amid skulls of animals, snakes in alcohol, stuffed birds 
and lizards. And the chief terror of the collection 
was a stuffed black cat of formidable size, which never 
failed to reduce the most callous visitor to groveling 
credence in the magician’s art. 

Miles, calling to mind the Voudoo stories whispered 
in trembling by the slaves upon the solitary passing of 
Daddy Jack through the plantation haunts, tried to 
picture the old man leading his fellow worshipers to 
the trysting place in unfrequented woods. Jack’s 
whistle, fashioned of swamp willow, had power like 
Hernani’s pipe. Where and whenever it might sound, 
the votary must follow. The gallant captain of the 
corn shuckers, throned on his pile of golden ears of 
maize, hearing but a single flute note in the thicket, 
must doff his sovereignty and glide away. The bride- 
groom making ready his nuptials by applying odorous 
unguents to his wool, nay, even on his way to the 
cabin of his fair, must leave bride and maidens lament- 
ing if Daddy summoned him. Old Jinny, Judy’s sis- 
ter, a mammoth like herself, would tremble at sound 
of Jack’s whistle as an elephant trembles at sight of a 
mouse. Poll Tod, the silly giant, half stripped and 
streaked with dyes, would leap and dance himself into 
convulsions at Jack’s signal, it was said. Ah! — this 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


152 

was certainly not an agreeable spot in which to spend 
one’s Christmas Eve after midnight. 

There had been until now no sound overhead but 
the tread of Jack’s flat feet on the floor. Then Miles 
heard a faint voice speaking between gasps, and dis- 
missed his suspicions of intended mischief. 

“Yo’ can walk up now, sah, ef you please,” said the 
African, reappearing at the trap-door above. “He’s 
awake an’ axing fer yer, sah.” 

Miles, climbing the ladder, found himself in a 
small raftered room, lit, as was the floor below, by a 
wick floating upon oil. There, on a pallet, lay a man 
painfully emaciated, spending his scant supply of 
breath in labored pantings, his large eyes gleam- 
ing with the unearthly light that heralds death’s 
approach. 

“Hit’s my son ’Gustus, Marse Miles,” said Daddy 
Jack, in the restrained manner he had hitherto ob- 
served. “Mebbe you aint nebber heerd o’ Gus?” 

“What — the one who ran away — who — ” said Miles, 
halting in his surprise. 

“Yes, sah, my on’y son, sah. Aint wuth tellin’ de 
overseer ’bout now, is he? We haint allers bin frien’s, 
Gus en me haint; but now he’s gin out, he’s cum 
back to his ole fader.” 

“Don’t waste time, father,” said the invalid, speak- 
ing painfully but with determination. “Many and 
many’s the time I begge$ tq see you, sir, since I first 



“THERE, ON A PALLET, LAY A MAN PAINFULLY EMACIATED. 











FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 153 

came here a couple of months ago and asked shelter 
from my father; but he’s put me off till now.” 

“It was you then — that night in the woods — that 
we hunted everywhere next day — and I was so sure 
she had imagined it?” Miles asked, light breaking on 
the confusion of his thoughts. 

“Yes, sir, I’d been hiding in the swamp, waitin’ my 
chance to get to Daddy’s cabin. I was hungry, and 
had come out on the way here, when I heard voices, 
and the dogs, and was afraid to stir. I never meant, 
sir, to frighten the young lady — indeed, I didn’t. The 
minute I laid eyes on you, I knew from the picture I 
had seen, it must be you, sir. Oh ! if you had my 
secret on your soul, you’d have groaned as I did — I 
couldn’t help it.” 

“Why didn’t you throw yourself upon my grand- 
father’s mercy?” said Miles. “Whatever your secret 
is, he’d have been kind to you.” 

“Oh, sir, I didn’t dare! By night and by day, 
these twenty years and more, I’ve carried it. It’s 
driven me to be a thief and worse. My hands are 
dipped in sin — if I had my deserts I’d be rotting now 
in jail.” 

“Come, come,” said Miles. “This will not help the 
matter. I don’t want to hear about your sins. I sup- 
pose you want me to make your peace with my grand- 
father; but I can tell you he’d have been better satis- 
fied to have you send for him, direct.” 


154 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“Oh, can’t you see, sir, I’m a dying man?” cried 
Gus, in anguish. “I couldn’t look my kind old master 
in the face and want to live. Listen to me, Master 
Miles, listen to every word I speak; for it means more 
to you than anybody in the world. And I call or 
God to hear me that I’m speaking gospel truth.” 

He raised his right hand solemnly in the air, then 
dropped it heavily, racked by a fit of coughing making 
it impossible for him to go on with his recital. 

“Sposen I tell Marse Miles, honey, twel yo’ git yo’ 
breff agin,” said Daddy Jack, who, perching himself 
upon the foot of the pallet, had lost not an expression 
of Miles’s face. “It’s a long time, sah, sence the Run- 
nel took dat journey to de Souf, and Gus went wid 
him as his walet. Gus was a fine young fellow, den, 
’en all de gals mirationin’ him. He lub’d finery, 
mightily, he did; war jus’ sot on gitten all he could — ” 

“Surely this can do no good,” interposed Miles, dis- 
gusted. 

“Let me speak, father,” said Gus. “Yes, sir, I had 
rings on my fingers, money in my pocket, fine clothes, 
all an indulgent master could give, but the devil 
wouldn’t let me be satisfied. That day — after the 
babies came ashore — you know the story, Master 
Miles, I can’t spare the breath to tell it over — I was 
walking on the beach — I saw the corpse of a woman 
drifting on a spar — I waded in and tried to pull her 
out — there, right around her body, in full view, was 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


155 


strapped a belt full of money and jewelry and a lady’s 
miniature and some papers. I’d stole studs from 
Master, sir, and dress-shirts and handkerchiefs, before, 
but never money. I counted it — five hundred in gold 
there was, and the diamonds were the biggest I ever 
saw — a necklace and earrings, and a splendid cross of 
emeralds — oh! Master Miles — forgive me — they were 
your mother’s, sir.” 

“Dick’s mother, you mean ; go on,” said Miles, with 
feverish eagerness. 

“No, sir, I mean just what I say. The jewels 
belonged to Mrs. Philip Throckmorton, the lady in 
the picture, sir, the wife of the Colonel’s only son, 
who was your father, Master Miles, if God calls me 
to judgment while I speak!” 

“Good God !” said Miles hoarsely. 

“I could read and write, sir, and I soon made out 
what the letters were about. The long one, written 
by Mr. Philip to the Colonel — said as plain as day — 
it’s in my mind like it was branded there — these are 
his very words — ‘the dark hair and rich coloring of my 
baby boy must plead with me for the memory of his 
Spanish mother — whom you never saw ; he is her liv- 
ing image, as her miniature will show.’ ” 

Miles heard the hoot of an owl in the forest that 
seemed to mock him. His lips parted, but he could 
not speak. 

“That gave me the first shock, sir, for I knew the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


1 S 6 

Colonel had settled as it was the light-haired little 
boy that was his grandson, along of his likeness to 
Marse Phil, and the locket around his neck. There 
warn’t another blessed mark about either child to tell 
'em ; for I helped to take ’em both out of the basket, 
and me and Master undressed them by ourselves. 
Master was bothered enough at first, but, when he 
made his mind up about Master Dick, he told me that 
was his grandson, and kissed and blessed him sol- 
emnly.” 

“Go on,” said Miles, after a pause filled with the 
labored breathing of the sufferer. 

“Those diamonds, sir,” cried out Gus, in sudden 
anguish, “they were my ruin. First, I thought I'd 
give up the miniature and letter; then I remembered 
Master was on the lookout for the belt, for the Consul 
at Jamaica had told him in the first letter what Mrs. 
Rollins had — and these things couldn’t have come dry, 
ashore, without the belt. I hid all in a hollow tree 
back in the woods, and hurried up the coast, and met 
one of the fishermen who was out looking for the 
nurse’s body. He gave me good-morning, and I told 
him I’d been walking in the woods. Pretty soon he 
came hurrying back to say there was a corpse ashore, 
and he believed he’d surely handle the reward Master 
had put up. He begged me to notify my master, 
while he staid there and watched — and I ran back, and 
told the Colonel, who never once suspected me. That 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


157 


was my last day of honesty. I never drew a free 
breath again. When I got back to the plantation the 
sight of the jewels that were no use to me was always 
goading me to run away and go to France where I’d 
heard tell a black skin was as good as any white one. 
I got off safe — ’twarn’t hard with such an easy master, 
sir. He wouldn’t even advertise for me. Oh, Master 
Miles, tell him I’ve repented on my knees the wrong 
I did him, and you, and Master Dick! Those jewels, 
sir — they’re gone past recall. Oh, how I prayed for 
strength to get back here and tell you all before it was 
too late! I’d ha’ been before, sir, but I was in jail; 
once in France, and here in America, too — there’s a 
reward upon me, now — I broke jail to get here ; it was 
hiding in the marsh that was my death. I’d ha’ 
spoken to you that night, Master Miles, I think — it 
didn’t seem to matter much whether I lived or died — 
but I heard you say those words about the man .... 
that sinned against the law .... must be punished 
by the law — ” 

Miles, in a tremor of anxiety for what was yet to 
come, had not dared to interrupt him by a question. 
Now, to his dismay, he perceived that the man’s 
strength seemed suddenly to fail. An awful pallor 
came upon his face. Great beads of sweat stood out 
upon his brow. 

“I forgive you fully, Gus,” he cried, leaning over and 
speaking into a dying ear. “But the letter — the pic- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


158 

ture — can’t you understand they’d be worth more to 
me than all the diamonds in the world.” 

“Scuse me , Marse Miles,” interposed Daddy Jack, 
with terrible suavity; “I’m not wishin’ to interrup* 
you, sah, but dat’s jes de p’int whar I comes in to dis 
heah business. I’ll tell you, sah, bout dat ar letter and 
picter. When ’Gustus run off from dis plantashun, 
I followed him en watched him hide ’em, en I dug 
’em up.” 

“Give them to me, you black scoundrel,” cried 
Miles, furious at his taunting tones. 

“I tole Gus twarn’ no use lettin’ Marse Miles know 
he was de Runnel’s gran’son widout de proof]' went 
on Daddy Jack, unmoved; “Gus’ll tell you I said tw’d 
des unsottle you.” 

“Give them to me, I tell you.” ^ 

“Dat time wen you wos a little sassy shaver, mock- 
ing pore ole Daddy Jack, tink I didn’t put de letter 
en de pictur, whar you’d nebber find ’em,” said the 
African, his face working with a fury gradually break- 
ing bounds. “Dey’s hid deeper’n dead men’s bones — 
whar I’d ha put you long ago, but I know’d dis day 
would come.” 

“I’ll give you one chance more,” said the young 
man, “and if you surrender my stolen property, I’ll let 
both of you go in peace. If not — and I believe 
there’s no dealing with a snake like you — by the 
Lord, I’ll strangle you.” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 159 

'‘He wants to git de pooty lady stid o’ Marse 
Dick — ” sneered Daddy Jack. 

With a bound, Miles sprang across the room and 
seized the negro by the throat. Jack fastened upon 
his limbs with astonishing activity, but the grip Miles 
had on him was irresistible and, blind with passion, he 
shook the old man as a terrier shakes a rat. 

There was a shrill cry from the bed. Gus, drawing 
himself up to lean upon one elbow, called out implor- 
ingly : 

“Daddy! Master Miles! for God’s sake let him go. 
Lean down, sir. Listen. I’ve got more to tell you yet.” 

Miles loosed his hold — hurling Jack across the foot 
of the bed, where he lay stunned and motionless. 

“Oh, sir, he’s not — ?” 

“He’s not hurt,” said Miles grimly. 

“Thank the Lord,” Gustus whispered painfully. 
“Oh, sir, it’s dreadful how he’s always hated you ! I 
had to humor him by letting him think he had this 
safe. But — I stole it back — quick, sir, quick, you can 
never tell what mischief he’ll be up to.” 

His feeble fingers thrust into Miles’s clasp a packet 
sewn in kid. It was the last effort of his strength. 
With a prayer for mercy on his lips, the thief fell back 
and ceased to breathe. When Daddy Jack became 
aware of the change, he threw himself upon the corpse 
with frantic cries, appearing not to know that Miles 
was present. 


160 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

The young man, after waiting undecided for a time, 
left the father with his dead. Tarry within the loath- 
some den he could not, but, lifting the bar, went out 
under the pale skies that preluded the Christmas 
dawn. 

Strange anomaly of negro nature, however degraded, 
that finds an outlet for all emotions in the utterance 
of religious aspiration! From the cabin loft floated 
the words of the hymn : 

“ There is a foun-tain filled with blood 
Drawn from — Emman-uel’s veins, 

And sin-ners plunged beneath that flood 
Lose all — their guilty stains. 

The dy-ing thief — rejoiced to see 
That foun-tain in his day. 

Oh ! may not I — as vile as he — 

Wash all — my sins — away ! ” 

“The old scoundrel,” thought Miles. “He’ll be 
back to-morrow at his old tricks; what I’ve got to do 
is to look sharp when he discovers he has been out- 
witted.” 

Dizzy, and heedless of his steps, he followed the tun- 
nel in the pines out to the quarter road. In the cabins 
all was silent ; except by the ailing or the youngest 
children they were deserted. All night the revels of 
the barbacue had kept up. Over fires of corncobs, 
built in shallow pits, hung the carcasses of sheep and 
hogs, while around them capered dark forms, singing, 
yelling, the scene suggesting some barbaric human 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 161 

sacrifice. From such occasions, it seemed that these 
sons and daughters of far Africa had but one step to 
make backward into the condition of their forefathers. 
Skirting the pine knoll on whose bare summit the 
feasting was in progress, Miles, too absorbed in his 
own reflections to give heed to aught beside, hesitated 
upon the threshold of the house. He shrank from the 
room he had been expected to share with Dick. The 
mere thought of Dick affected him as if a cold hand 
were laid upon his beating heart. Remembering the 
old school-room was easily entered through doors 
never locked, he found his way into its dark interior. 
From a basket of pine cones and twigs upon the 
hearth, he built a fire, and at the quick blaze, mounting 
up in the cavernous chimney, warmed his fingers still 
clinging to the packet which remained to convince him 
that he had not dreamed an evil dream. Tossed be- 
tween hope and fear that he had been deceived, dread- 
ing yet longing to open it, he turned over and over the 
worn, soiled object ; and at last, with an impetuous 
movement, cut with his pocket-knife the stitches that 
confined it, and threw with disgust the outer envelope 
into the fire. 

“Is it my future and Dick’s that I have here?” he 
wondered, still hesitating. 

Then, with impatience at the cowardice of his own 
delay, he unfolded the tissue-paper wrapped in many 
thicknesses about the contents, and within, incased in 

ii 


162 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


cotton-wool, found a miniature and a letter. As he 
slanted the glass covering the picture, to catch the 
proper light, Miles uttered an exclamation — refined, 
softened into the lines of womanly beauty, it was yet 
unmistakably his own face. On the reverse of the 
medallion were engraved these words, in Spanish : 

“To my beloved husband, Philip, from his wife Eu- 
phrasia, this picture of herself, on the birthday of their 
son, Richard Miles Throckmorton, May 25th, 183-” 

“Richard Miles” he thought ; “then at least I have 
had my rightful name.” 

Crowding under durance of his will the ugly demons 
that were already swarming to his soul, he lifted the 
thin sheet of foreign paper, and unfolded it — the letter 
written by poor Philip after his wife’s death of the 
pestilence, and in face of the risk of the same fate for 
himself — the letter for which the dear Colonel had 
spent so many yearning moments of regret, which 
would have made so vast a difference in Miles’s lot in 
life had it but reached its destination in due time ! 

In reading it, Miles was conscious of intrusion as 
into a sanctuary. It was a boy’s outpouring of peni- 
tence for pain given to a beloved parent, of hope for 
the future, framed in words meant for the loving eyes 
of one alone. It struck Miles as so very curious that 
the writer had been but twenty-three years old — but a 
little older than himself, and yet a husband sorrowing 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


163 


for a lost wife, a father pleading for his child. It soft- 
ened his heart not only to the shadowy image of Philip 
Throckmorton, but to feel the first throb of filial love 
he had experienced. There was something exquisite 
and yet poignant in this tenderness that rose up from 
far distant graves, and fell on his bruised spirit like 
a balm. Was not this what the hurt child feels whose 
heart is lightened because his father has kissed his 
tears away, although the pain endures? Miles’s eyes 
moistened more than once during the reading which 
made him aware of hopes and plans for his future 
conceived so fondly and so unavailingly. 

There was no room to doubt the accuracy of the 
statement Gus had made. The jewels, as described — 
by him, were enumerated, the miniature identified — 
here were the very words gasped by the thief in 
dying: 

“ . . . the dark hair and rich coloring of my baby 
boy must plead with me for the memory of his Span- 
ish mother whom you never saw — he is her living 
image , as her miniature will show. He will be hot 
tempered and impetuous, but easily swayed by love. 
If I read my son aright, you will have no cause to 
blush for your successor. Oh ! that it may be that 
what I dread may never come to pass and that I, 
myself, may place him in your arms .... Tom’s 
boy is healthy and sweet-tempered. With his fair 
locks, and unusually light blue eyes, he repeats his 
little New England mother, showing no trace of poor 


164 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Tom. The two came to us for a visit when Tom 
sailed away. When the news arrived of his loss at 
sea, of course my home was theirs — you know I loved 
Tom dearly, spite of all his faults; and it was because 
I was here he came over to Jamaica and took a turn 
at sugar-planting (a failure, need I say it, like the 
rest). Mrs. Tom, poor little thing, sickened the day 
before my Euphrasie — they were buried together. At 
the first approach of the epidemic we had sent away 
the children in the care of the faithful Englishwoman, 
a soldier’s widow, who will — if I do not — place them 
in your hands. To Jane Rollins, who is thoroughly 
trustworthy, I have confided the valuables you know 
of, and she will also consign to you this letter. I 
assured Mrs. Tom that I could depend upon your 
welcome of her child. Choosing to fancy me her 
benefactor, she, with her own hands, hung around her 
baby’s neck a little picture of me which she begged 
Mrs. Rollins not to take off. Who better than I, my 
dearest dad, knows that your heart is big enough for 
two? Oh, if I could sweep away the cloud that lies 
between us — could, face to face, tell you all these 
things — ! .... Tom’s baby, also, is called Richard 
Miles. In our family, we seem to have a passion for 
repeating the same names. Knowing your objection 
to having children called after living sponsors, I have 
decided on giving my fellow, for everyday use, his sec- 
ond name of Miles. How far back it goes in our line, 
doesn’t it? A good, square, straightforward name, 
that none but a straightforward man should bear. 
But Richard, I love best — Richard-the-Lion-Heart- 
Throckmorton, as I remember scrawling in a book of 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 165 

yours one day, and almost getting licked for it. Dear 
old days ! — dear father, — my heart melts like a wo- 
man’s as I write. By Jove, though, this letter’s as full 
of hearts as a valentine. I must brace up and look 
on the bright side of our possible reunion. Glancing 
at the date of this, I find I was twenty-three last 
week! Think of it will you? What an old fellow, 
and you a grandfather! God send the rest of my life 
may be spent on the old plantation side by side with 
my father, who now, and always, has the love and duty 
of his son, 

Philip Miles Throckmorton. 

After he had read for a second time the entire let- 
ter, and had laid it down, Miles felt a lump swelling in 
his throat. His first impulse was to knock boldly at 
the door of his grandfather’s room, and walk into 
it, head erect, proclaiming his discovery and his 

proofs It was broad day when he started from 

his reverie to find his fire gone out and his limbs 
cramped. But he heeded not these things, for the 
notion that was tugging at his heartstrings and vexed 
him sorely and yet would not leave him. Goaded by 
it, he went out again and tried by active exercise to 
rid himself of the unwelcome guest that had found a 
lodgment, now, to stay. He took his trouble to the 
woods as he had done many a time before. Like a 
stag flying to green glades with the arrow sticking in 
his side, the poor boy rushed through the under- 
growth, crackling and rending thorny thickets, and 


1 66 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


never pausing till he came to a spot remote from the 
haunts of man. 

A place grass-grown, and as green almost as in sum- 
mer, with clumps of laurel and arbor vitae and cedar all 
about. The hollies here, growing to great height and 
breadth, and covered with crimson berries, were like 
blazing lamps in the forest. Every tuft and twig had 
its coating of light snow, and the morning air was 
wondrously clear and still, filling the lungs with exhila- 
ration. Miles knelt down and drank at a little 
stream tinkling under green moss and dead leaves, 
and laved his head and felt refreshed. He looked up 
and saw on the bough of an oak, high above, a splen- 
did cluster of gray-green mistletoe with pearly berries, 
and the old boyish desire to climb and fetch it down 
for grandmamma, came over him. A rabbit, skurrying 
by, made him wonder if Dick had been to see the 
traps — it was Dick’s day to go yesterday, and — Miles 
laughed aloud — in the woods at Flower de Hundred 
a man could never grow old! Surely this was the 
tree, — yes, of course it was, — he knew that odd bulge, 
midway on a branch, so difficult to get over — whence 
he had tumbled the day he sprained his knee and 
shoulder. They had set out, Dick and he, with the 
cart and mule and old Jock, to pick mistletoe for 
Christmas ten years back, and, straying away from 
Jock, had come upon this tree, as tempting then as 
now. Miles volunteered to “shin” it, though Dick 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


167 

warned him of its unusual height. After a tough 
climb he had seized the bunch and started to descend. 
A limb, betraying his keen sight, broke under him, and 
down he crashed to earth, clutching the mistletoe 
through all. Dick's face, when he got his wind again 
and lay there squeezing down the groans, he never 
could forget — so dirty, tear-stained, wretched, full of 
yearning love ! What an affectionate little kid Dick was 
to be sure ! How he’d rolled his jacket up, and put it 
under the sufferer’s head, who fainted before Dick 
had gone far on the way to get old Jock and the cart. 

When Dick returned and found him senseless, and 
believed him dead — “his mo’nin wud a bruk yer heart 

to see,” said Jock to Judy So it had ever been 

.... to the rest of the world Dick ranked first — 
to Dick, Miles ! And now, without premonition, had 
come into Miles’s life — that, halting, stumbling in 
achievement as it had been, was yet full of generous 
impulse and on the threshold of a broader sphere of 
manly action — the greatest opportunity his mind 
could conceive to prove the love he bore Dick in 
return. It was that thought which goaded him and 
drove him, and would not let him rest. For Dick’s 
sake he had renounced his chance with Bonnibel ; Dick 
might never know it, even the dear grandfather had 
but half guessed at the wrench it cost him ; but it was 
done, and his unworthy passion, in its final throes the 
night before, shamed him now to think about. Of 


i68 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


what value the sacrifice, if he were to take the ground 
from under Dick’s feet, to rob him of place and for- 
tune, to cover him with the odium of having filled a 
false position before the world, to set the thousand 
tongues of gossip wagging, and rend away forever from 
their peaceful home its veil of privacy? Next came 
also to torment him the idea that some things are not 
easy to do in cold blood. When, now, after delibera- 
tion, it had reached the point of revealing his news to 
the family, the poor fellow absolutely shuddered and 
drew back as from a dishonorable action. What in the 
first flush of triumph he had called his right, seemed 
to him a thing that it would be rather sneaking to 
stretch out his hand to take. It is, indeed, never cer- 
tain that a break is welcome in any long-settled and 
not unpleasant habit. That this law of routine which 
rules us inexorably might make everybody in the 
household wish he had held his peace, suggested itself 
in the most matter of fact fashion, and dashed his hero- 
ism as with an icy shower. There was one point over 
which Miles struggled long and distressfully. Had he 
also the right to withhold from his grandfather the let- 
ter, so precious in his eyes? At this, the tenderness 
put to flight by cold calculation came back and filled 
the eyes of the lonely boy with honest tears. 

When he came out of the woods Miles had quite 
made up his mind what it was best for him to do. 
The sun was shining, the plantation was noisy with 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


169 


cries of “I ketch you Christmas gif’,” and when sleepy 
Dick awoke it was to find Miles fully dressed, and 
smiling down upon him with something more than 
mere Christmas brightness in his face. 

‘‘Christmas gift !” said Dick drowsily. 

“All right, old man, I’ll pay up,” Miles answered. 

Directly after breakfast was observed the ceremony 
of distributing gifts to the quarter, the negroes in gala- 
array assembling at the “Gret Hoos” to receive their 
dole. Then the house-party walked across a field path 
to the little church where Cousin Polly Lightfoot kept 
everything in charge except the rector, who assisted 
her in the matter of chancel decorations, and the black 
velvet alms-pouch attached to a long pole, which it 
was the Colonel’s duty to pass among the worshipers. 
The quaint old pew, built for the family, was a sort 
of curtained gallery, relinquished long since for one in 
the body of the church. The little Colonial edifice, 
erected in the form of a cross, with massive walls, a 
roof shingled with juniper, and a flagging of freestone, 
had well resisted Time. The graceful arches, the pul- 
pit hanging apparently like an oriole’s nest in mid-air, 
the silver chalice and paten presented by Queen Anne, 
and the tablets, with inscriptions in Latin and armorial 
bearings that were set round the walls, spoke of old 
times more glorious to state than church; for there 
was a legend that one of the earliest rectors had 
preached a sermon here in pink and spurs under his 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


170 

gown, and after service had carried a challenge from 
one to another of his parishioners to fight a duel ! 

The Colonel, seated between Dick and Bonnibel, 
looked reverently happy. More than once his eyes 
were observed to wander in the direction of the slab 
recording the names of Mildred “Wife of Richard 
Throckmorton,” and of Philip, “their beloved Son,” 
and his lips to move as if in prayer. Miles, who sat 
facing them, thought the beautiful peace on his grand- 
father’s face a better sermon than any that could be 
preached to him from the pulpit. It gave him 
strength to do what was yet to be done. And it made 
him feel there is a possession worth more to a man 
than a goodly heritage in lands. 

The Christmas ball at Flower de Hundred, since 
spoken of as “the last before the wah,” came off with 
due eclat. Old Saul, who kept together the traditions 
of former festivities, announced that this one exceeded 
its predecessors as one star surpasseth another in 
splendor, chiefly because “ ’taint ebbry day de planta- 
tion sees a bride like Miss Bonnibel lead de Virginny 
reel wid a groom like Marse Dick.” The old butler did 
not, however, carry an entirely light heart into the 
festivities. On the return of the family from church, 
he had met them with the startling announcement 
that Daddy Jack’s cabin had been burnt out in the 
night, and the old man had disappeared. No trace 
was found of him in the square of blackened earth 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 17 1 

under the ruins. Miles, who went with the other men 
of the household to satisfy himself upon this point, 
felt convinced that the old reprobate had, upon dis- 
covering his loss, in a frenzy of baffled rage fired his 
cabin and escaped into the swamp carrying the body 
of his son. However that may be, Daddy Jack was 
never seen again in his old haunts, and the negroes 
did not hesitate to believe that he had gone off with 
his comrade, the night-doctor, on a blast of wind which, 
as they averred, had arisen and departed in the hour 
before daybreak. 

This circumstance was coupled with another of 
equal portent in Saul’s mind. When he had come into 
the hall that morning early, he had for the first time 
in his memory found the Yule-log gray and cold, with 
not a spark remaining to prophesy good fortune to 
Flower de Hundred during the coming year! 

Old Guy the founder, and Lady Mary, and the 
other silent guardians enframed in wild wood green- 
ery, must have been satisfied with the pleasant aspect 
of affairs! To outward view there was not a cloud 
upon the scene. The quadrilles, — cotillions, they 
called them, — more in vogue than waltz or polka, were 
danced under the dominion of black Caesar in a high 
stock, standing collar, blue coat with brass buttons, 
nankeen breeches, and pumps dating fifty years back, 
fragrant of the camphor of old Sabra’s chest. He 
played first fiddle in every sense, shouting at intervals, 


172 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“Forward en back! Balance to yer pardners! Right 
en lef’ through ! Ladies change ! Sachay ! Balancay ! 
Now! den! Han’s all rounV’ The dark faces look- 
ing in at every door and window were to the full as 
much impressed by Caesar swaying the multitude as 
by the white folks’ show. When the reel was danced 
Caesar rose to concert pitch of excitement. He 
waved, scraped, shouted, made his fiddle sing. He 
was no more to be resisted than the Pied Piper of 
Hamelin. His jolly visage shone with glee and per- 
spiration. Mrs. Selina Ackley in a Bayadere magenta 
silk, with ringlets and a scarf, hung her head to one 
side, held her skirts out and, like Cherubina de Wil- 
loughby, “danced up insidious” to meet Miles. Mrs. 
Hazleton had captured Mr. Crabtree for her partner, 
and, having once consented, the Parson put conscience 
into his work. Solemn, painstaking, he revived by- 
gone steps, and even cut a rusty pigeon’s wing. 
Tabby, losing her breath at the outset, made no 
attempt to regain it, but puffed down the middle and 
panted back, her cap askew, her gown of changeable 
silk ballooning, her face beaming with fun. Old Tom, 
dancing with handsome Mrs. Willis, had put on his 
best spirits with the ruffled shirt and hair brooch 
reserved for balls and weddings. The only fly in his 
ointment was that Vashti had made him wear a titil- 
lating plaster on his chest, and a bit of red flannel 
around his throat. He knew the one was beginning 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 1 7 3 

to burn him like the deuce, and he was afraid the 
other would “ride up” into sight above his stock. 

Bonnibel, in white “Swiss,” with cape-jasmines in 
her hair, and Ursula, in white too (her first frock that 
“touched”), with a cherry sash and topknot, throwing 
themselves into the spirit of the scene ; Dick, feeling 
that life could hold only one moment happier for him 
than this; Miles, dark, handsome, carrying his head 
erect, adored by the girls who shared his favors evenly ; 
Cousin Polly, footing it with the best of them ; the gay 
girls and stalwart youths, kinsmen, neighbors, friends, 
who made up the company, — as I write they seem to 
join hands in a dizzy round, before vanishing into the 
shadows of the war! 

And now the ball is over, the dancers scattered! 
Old Saul goes about putting out Christmas candles, 
banking ashes on the fires. Good-night to Flower de 
Hundred! Good-bye to happy days ! 


CHAPTER VI. 


In the spring of i860, on the mountains that looked 
upon Palermo as Palermo, couched on her “golden 
shell,” looked on the sea, had gathered the little army 
of a patriot-chief, waiting his order to swoop to rescue 
of the town from Bourbon rule. Their camp life was 
of the roughest. As Garibaldi fared, so fared they. 
But they were all — officers, soldiers, priests, guides — 
united in a tremendous purpose, that made them 
brothers, and the hardships of every day a mere tale to 
tell to future generations of the children of free Sicily. 

One May morning during the period of enforced 
quiet before the descent upon the town, a young 
volunteer sat apart from the others engaged in writing 
upon leaves torn from his pocket-book. His desk was 
the guacho saddle which served also as a pillow to the 
sheepskin stretched on the grass, where by night he 
dreamed under the stars. He was dark and pictur- 
esque enough to be an Andalusian ; so said, at least, 
Frate L£one, a jolly, fighting monk who made one of 
the expedition, and was his especial chum. The Sicil- 
ian compromised with his first astonishment over his 
friend’s assertion that he was an American, by saying, 
“American? Oh, yes, but it is South Americans you 
are who call yourselves Virginians; that explains 
174 


FLOWER BE HUNDRED. 175 

your looks, my son, and makes you so much at 
home among us Latins.” 

Frate L£one, basking like a lizard in the sun, waits 
for the conclusion of the young man’s letter. We, 
who need not stand on ceremony, may follow his pen- 
cil as it flies. 

“Yes, it is you, my dear staunch little cousin, who 
have earned the right to my last long letter before the 
next move forward in our glorious campaign — and if I 
fall before Palermo you will know what store I set by 
the charming budget of home news you have given 
me in your inimitable way — for, young as you are, my 
dear, you have already the light touch, inspired by a 
warm heart, that creates the ideal woman’s letter. 
Why, only to re-read it just now, and shut my eyes, 
carried me back to old Virginny’s shore, and I could 
smell the magnolia blooms, — they are passing now, and 
all the other trees upon the river lawn are shaking out 
their censers, — and every day the darling little Madam 
goes out in her chair between the box hedges and 
notes how this honeysuckle is encroaching over every- 
thing, and says the pink daily rose must really not be 
allowed to cover the poor old smoke-tree with its blos- 
soms — and her little black charioteer picks calycanthus 
shrubs and bruises them to smell, working his toes in 
the warm sand of the walks. You ride with grand- 
father to see the sheep shorn — foolish, struggling 
things, resisting capture till overpowered, and held 
prone, while Caesar drives his sharp shears around so 
skillfully that the fleece turns back like a lady’s 
glove — and they emerge mincing and sidling and 


176 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


afraid to walk — “lawk-a-mercy on me, can this be I.” 
Then, far away on the other side of the field, huddled 
in a whitey yellow blur upon the green, they espy 
their comrades — sure enough, it is fashionable to go 
without overcoats — and off, bleating and running, in 
staggers at first, then swift as the wind to join the 
rest ! — And this is only a little part of the long May 
day’s delights ! There is nothing too small to interest 
me as to the place and people. I have devoured all 
you say about the gray mare’s colt and the big stur- 
geon Jock caught, and Fuzzy Top’s chickens; and I 
congratulate you heartily that the powers that be 
have decided to let Mademoiselle go back to live 
with her sister in France. You wont be a model 
young lady, Nutty, unless you encourage their send- 
ing you to a finishing school in Richmond or Balti- 
more. But, bless me! I for one, don’t want you fin- 
ished. If it is what you are now, I think I prefer you 
half-done! Get Parson Crabtree to suggest books for 
you to read, and to have an eye to your Latin and 
mathematics. Nutty, a hundred times I’ve thought 
of your brave, pale little face the day I came away. 
You were off by yourself upon the wharf. There 
were no tears in any eyes but yours — it warmed my 
heart that was like a stone inside of me. And though 
I’ve never said anything about your coming to my 
side that Christmas eve, you must not think I did not 
understand. Some day you’ll be the sunshine of a 
good man’s life. If he’s not good enough for you, I 
think I’ll throttle him. There are only two good men, 
and they are my grandfather and Dick. You ask if I 
am happy. Aye, that am I, it is the life I was born 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


177 


for, and I wouldn’t give it up for a king’s ransom. 
After knocking about in the East as you know, and 
happening in for a nice little scrimmage with seventy 
Arabs, who set on our party of less than twenty men, 
on our way from Jericho, — my grandfather will have 
had the letter telling this, — I loafed around awhile in 
Greece — the most perfect atmosphere in all the 
world — and then, Italy and Garibaldi! I’m only a 
private in his ranks, but that’s enough for me. Such 
a man ! I feel as if my pencil would tear the paper to 
tatters if I went to saying what I think. He’s taken 
notice of me and made me a sort of a scout already, 
with a horse to ride, and he never passes me without 
a kind word for America. 

“We are camped upon the hills above Palermo, and 
any day may descend upon the town. Our tents are 
blankets stretched over lances stuck into the ground. 
Our fare a calf stewed with onions, with the black 
bread of these peasants, and we drink the native wine. 
(This is not to say I wouldn’t be after fancying a cut 
of one of the Honey Hall hams, or a pot of blackberry 
jam, you’ll please to understand!) Happy? Who 
wouldn’t be? Such a glorious view of sea and moun- 
tain tops before me, as I scribble. Such clear air, 
such merry company! There, I must stop, but I’ll 
take it up again to-morrow. One thing, though — that 
packet I left with you — remember, if I die, you are to 
open it, and then do with it what you like — and I 
must not forget to say here that I got Dick’s note, 
saying his wedding day was set for April — ” 

“What is it that has stung you, my son?” cries out 

the good brother, stirred from his repose. 

12 


178 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“Me? Nothing!” says the other. 

But he writes no more that day ; and at dawn upon 
the morrow the little army creeps down the rocky 
stairway of the hills and catches the sleeping city 
unawares. As the Bourbons retreat, and all the for- 
eigners in town take to their ships lying in the offing, 
amid fire and smoke, but with little bloodshed, Gari- 
baldi enters into possession of his prize. 

Here, it has been said, began the epic of the Gari- 
baldian legend. The Palermese, looking upon the 
hero as an angel sent by God to their relief, sur- 
rounded him, kissing his garments, hailing him as 
deliverer. For a couple of days thereafter, the 
bombarding from the ships kept them busy; but 
when that ceased Palermo belonged once more to 
Sicily, and Garbaldi assumed the dictatorship of the 
island. 

The letters from Miles to his family, after this, 
were necessarily infrequent. The summer’s campaign, 
which was like a march of triumph, kept his blood at 
fever heat, his thoughts concentrated on the fortunes 
of the hour. ... ^ 

After the battle of Melazzo, a letter was written for, 
not by, the young American, whom the chief had hon- 
ored with his friendship, and whose pluck and soldierly 
bearing had stood him in good stead, as we shall see. 
His sword-arm was in a sling, but he was otherwise in 
good shape, sitting at an inn table in Messina, dictat- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 179 

ing to an Englishman, a volunteer like himself, who 
cheerfully served as scribe. 

“I am all right, my dear grandfather, and I make 
haste to give you the details of the fight of the 20th 
of July. It began, at daybreak, by the Neapolitans 
opening fire on our left, from behind a reed-bed where 
they lay concealed. We were in the center near the 
General, and at once got the order to charge on the 
enemy’s line. They were so well screened by fig-trees 
and thick growing reeds our bayonets were no good, 
but on we went, to the assault, plunging headlong into 
a tremendous fight. One of our Generals, Medici, had 
a horse killed under him, and gallant Cosenz was 
popped over by a spent ball, and we believed him to 
be killed. But he was up in a minute shouting. 
“Viva ITtalia.’’ Then Garibaldi, with a few aids and 
guides and the Genoese Carbineers, while attempting 
to take the enemy on the flank, came on an ugly gun 
in the middle of the road, before a party of soldiers, 
who showered us with grape. Great Heaven, what 
a slaughter! When the smoke cleared away, there 
was Garibaldi on foot, one boot and stirrup gone, 
beside his wounded horse — a mere handful of his men 
around him, the ground strewn with dead. I lost my 
horse, and was hit in the right arm, but managed to 
scramble into somebody’s empty saddle, and follow 
the General, who had done the same. Well, we took 
that monster of a gun, but a troop of cavalry came 
down on us like a hurricane, trying to get it back. 

“They rode into a ring of fire, their leader meeting 
face to face with ours, who seized his bridle-rein and 


180 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

called on him to surrender. His answer was a saber- 
thrust, parried by our chief, who, with his sword, laid 
the Neapolitan Colonel’s cheek open to the bone. 
Then came one of those sights that dazzle and thrill 
you — a sort of flash of up-swung sabers around Gari- 
baldi’s head, and our men, closing around him, fight- 
ing like fiends to rescue him ! I had the luck to 
knock the horse from under a man who was trying to 
ride me down, but he grabbed at my throat in return, 
and where I should be now, but for the hand that 
writes this letter — he says, ‘enough of that,’ and so, 
perhaps, it is. The newspapers, will tell you about 
our taking Messina. The little town is crowded with 
soldiers, like a camp — ” 

So far the letter was in a strange hand. An addi- 
tion to it, in cramped characters, evidently the work of 
the left hand, was from Miles himself. 

“Now for my news. I couldn’t let Cunningham — 
the best fellow you ever saw, besides having saved my 
life — put this in. I’m Captain on the General’s staff, 
this fortnight past — he called me out upon the field, 
sir, and did it publicly. I knew you’d want to hear 
it. Tell Dick and Ursula (who’s as good as any boy^ 
and the Parson — and God bless you all, dear grand- 
father.” 

During his period of service with Garibaldi, Captain 
Throckmorton enjoyed the privilege of taking part in 
eleven battles and many skirmishes, besides being sent 
by the Commander-in-Chief upon one or two delicate 
missions, involving risk to his neck. This was, on the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 181 

whole, a fortunate state of things; for his messmates — 
who had made such a favorite of the dare-devil young 
American with the soft voice and courteous manners ; 
who had been entertained by his clever imitations of 
the negro patting Juba on the banks of the James, or 
dancing breakdowns after the corn was harvested — 
had found out also that Miles was never happier than 
when in action. He had moody spells during which 
none cared to approach him; and the one or two 
exhibitions of his temper when roused had not 
invited a repetition of the display. The marches, the 
bivouacs, the fights, the secret service, — above all the 
hero-worship for his chief, — kept him wholesome and 
generally cheerful. With his friend Cunningham, he 
was sent to London upon an expedition to recruit vol- 
unteers and in search of the sinews of war, and, return- 
ing, remained by Garibaldi until the splendid transfer 
by that leader, to King Victor Emmanuel, of a king- 
dom he might have claimed as his own, and his subse- 
quent retirement to Caprera. 

Let us now, for the better understanding of events 
that are to follow, bestow a passing glance upon the 
social conditions of the American Republic, so soon to 
be plunged into fratricidal war. 

In the Southern States, the discussion of the 
tragedy at Harper’s Ferry — the bass note struck at 
the beginning of the struggle, whose echoes will go on 


182 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


reverberating down all Time — had known a temporary 
lull. Talk was now all about the new President, upon 
whom so much depended, and everywhere the voice 
of the politician was heard in the land. A charming 
young English prince, come over the seas into loyal 
Canada, had danced his way gayly through the East- 
ern and Middle States. People at the North might 
pretend republican indifference to this event, but in 
the South it was quite otherwise. Virginians espe- 
cially, who still treasured portraits of the beautiful 
Florizel, great-uncle of the present royalty, — who, 
spite of their Washington and Jefferson, continued to 
talk of England as “home” and the “parent land,” — 
were properly excited at his coming. They even felt 
a little uncertain how they could continue to like that 
delightful, witty Mr. Thackeray, after his lectures 
upon the Georges. 

Elsewhere, the Japanese princes divided attention 
with a new mammoth steamship called the Great 
Eastern. Washington Irving had died ; and, following 
matchless Geoffry Crayon to the shades, had passed 
that kindly gentleman, G. P. R. James, whose works 
were many, but, by my halidom ! I trow, there be 
few who read them now! People were buying, bor- 
rowing, taking out of libraries, eagerly talking about, 
four new novels: Elsie Venner, The Mill on the 
Floss, The Marble Faun, and the Woman in White. 
(One could wish there were some to equal these in 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 183 

the present year of grace !) Spiritualism, through 
its accomplished prophet, Mr. Home, had brought 
into vogue table-turnings, raps, and flights of the soul 
through space. 

But, in Virginia, there was too much of anxiety for 
the future of their State to allow indulgence in many 
fashionable pastimes. Men, living in sequestered 
neighborhoods, mounted their horses and cantered 
over to the cross-roads’ post-office or County Court 
House to hear the news, and feel the pulse of the 
community. Mothers of families, to whom their lords 
returned from these disturbing expeditions to sit for 
hours poring with knitted brows over the newspapers, 
could net at first understand what the whole thing 
was about. They were well off as they were. The 
crops were good, hog-killing promised fairly, the 
negroes, in spite of that horrid scare of Harper’s 
Ferry, were behaving as usual, not a pot of the sum- 
mer preserves had fermented, and it was a healthy 
season. The children gave little heed to the brewing 
trouble. From what the young ones had been able 
to pick up in the conversation of their elders, there 
existed in the far-away North, a race of dark-complex- 
ioned folk called “Black Republicans,” who wanted to 
get their colored people to run away and sit at hotel 
tables beside the whites ! A silly notion, not worth 
all this pother — and they went back to their play, 
these children who were to see the wave of civil war 


184 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


in all its horrors invade their hearth-stones, and some 
of them to grow up deprived of education, pinched 
and narrowed to live the lives of the poorest. 

Seeing farther into a millstone than did the quiet 
dwellers of the interior, those of the Border gathered 
themselves together to meet the coming shock. Mod- 
erate men shrank aghast from the apparition confront- 
ing them. At Flower de Hundred, the Colonel 
watched the movement of the advanced secessionists 
with an anxiety little short of fever. Day and even- 
ing he would pace the hall and study, brooding over 
affairs; and thus, one afternoon in December, Pey- 
ton Willis, riding over to inquire what news had 
come by the down boat, found him. in great perturba- 
tion. 

Willis, a then rare type in the better class of Vir- 
ginia society, an “extreme measures” man, had been 
pressing the Colonel hard for reasons why he desired 
their State to hold back in the attitude of a mediator 
between the contending parties. 

“South Carolina has seceded, sir!” the Colonel said, 
greeting him with a somber face. 

“Then it is war — war to the knife,” cried out Willis, 
violently striking his fist upon the table. “If our men 
in power are fit for their places, they’ll show those 
cursed Abolitionists we’re prepared to meet them in 
the field. I’m ready to take up arms to-morrow. I 
hope before a year has gone the soil of our State will 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 185 

be one vast military camp awaiting the drum tap to 
repel armed interference from the North.” 

‘‘I trust not, Willis; I trust not,” said the old man, 
gnawing his gray mustache, as he did when sorely 
vexed. “We have had wise rulers in the past as well 
as good soldiers. Let’s hope the men of to-day are fit 
to cope with the issues of to-day. Of this action of 
South Carolina there has been hardly room to doubt. 
Long ago, when she was so near seceding about nulli- 
fication, Mr. Calhoun prophesied that when it came to 
be a question not of taxes but of slavery, she would 
not hesitate to leave the Union. To my judgment 
the misfortune is that we’re letting party shriekers 
make slavery the matter of contention between the 
States. If to fight we are finally driven, which God 
forbid, let it be for the right of self-government, for 
liberty, but not for slavery.” 

“If I fight, Colonel,” said Willis, in a deliberately 
drawling voice, assumed in his moments of keen ex- 
citement, “I wish it to be clearly understood that it 
is to maintain my place as one of the governing race 
who wont brook having his slave held as his equal. I 
decline to submit to be plundered by a seL of high- 
way robbers from another country, who, sneaking down 
here to sow the seeds of revolt among our slaves, 
would forever destroy the security of our homes ; who 
are directly responsible for the ruin and bloodshed 
sure to come. Peace! There is no peace, when we 


i86 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


are linked in the bonds of brotherhood to fellows who 
stoop to that. The torch John Brown put into the 
hands of our blacks has already burnt away such 
bonds. There are none existing. By the act of the 
men of the North we are freed from them. If we 
must fight to stay free, then let us fight.” 

“I don’t sympathize with the sentimentalists who 
cry out on us as fiends, because we accept the condi- 
tions of life and society transmitted to us by our fa- 
thers,” said the Colonel, “and which, till recently, mark 
you, existed in Massachusetts. We, at a tremendous 
cost, have kept our negroes from lapsing into barbar- 
ism, and they are a heavy weight to carry. But I’d 
have been glad to have been born free of the responsi- 
bility of slaves. I wish my great-grandchildren could 
live free of it.” 

“Why, Colonel!” exclaimed Willis, with a glitter in 
his eye. “This is queer talk for a slaveholder at a 
time like this.” 

“I have held this opinion since before you were 
born, and you know it,” answered Richard Throckmor- 
ton, getting up to walk the floor. 

“Then you don’t mean to resist the Yankees when 
they come?” 

“Why, sir, confound you, d’ye think a man who’s 
fought under that , can wish to fight against it?” cried 
out the old man, stopping short, and pointing to the 
flag that hung above his midshipman’s sword upon the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


187 


wall. “When I was a little chap, pacing the decks of 
the Constitution, I used to watch it every day 
above me, and think of the blood that had been shed 
to put it theVe — -I was lifted up, then and there, out of 
boyhood into a man’s sense of responsibility and 
honor. When we went into action with the Gucr- 
rtire, and hot shot began to rain upon our decks, I 
can remember catching a glimpse of those colors that 
was like a shock of electricity. A man don’t forget 
such things because his hair is white, Peyton Willis. 
Put that into your pipe and smoke it, and then you’ll 
understand why I don’t want to take arms against this 
flag.” 

“But suppose your State goes out of the Union,” 
suggested Willis, with a half-smile. 

A flush mounted to the Colonel’s forehead, and 
deepened the brown of his withered cheeks. 

“Virginia!” he exclaimed, in reverent accents; “I 
should feel as if my mother called me to come to her 
in need.” 

“You make me think of that epitaph over the 
Throckmorton who was the last of the Burgesses to 
hold out for King George,” Willis said, softened 
against his will : “ ‘Loyal to his King, As he was Born, 
he Died — a True Virginian.’ ” 

“You may write ‘ditto’ over my old bones, when it’s 
time to lay me at his feet, Phil,” answered the Colonel 
gently. 


1 83 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“I’m thinking this little rumpus will bring home 
that young cockerel of yours, over the sea, to crow 
on his own fence,” went on his neighbor. “That’s 
what we need now — young blood and spirit that does 
not count the cost.” 

“You’ll have enough of it, never fear,” said the Colo- 
nel, sighing. “My last letter from Miles tells me he 
is determined to resign the commission the King has 
given him in the Sardinian service, — as he has done to 
all of Garibaldi’s officers, — and sail for home at the first 
indication that his State requires his services.” 

“Good !” cried Willis, slapping his knee. “And 
Dick? We can depend on Dick?” 

“You may depend on Dick not to hold back in time 
of real emergency — yes. But he will not move with- 
out weighing well the reasons and the proprieties.” 

“Geography has taken care that whatever comes we 
shall be in for it. A few months, and this quiet slug- 
gish old river of ours may be alive with gun-boats, 
and our shores with camps. Nobody, living where we 
do, can sit down with folded hands and merely pray 
for the result. I shall run up to Richmond to-mor- 
row, and take the sense of my friends there as to the 
action of our State. If Virginia fails to follow Caro- 
lina, then I shall blush for her, and shake her dust 
off my feet. To secure Southern independence, I’d 
pull up stakes to-morrow, and go down to enlist as a 
South Carolina volunteer.” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


189 


“Put on the brakes, Phil,” said the Colonel, wincing. 
“Let us talk of something pleasanter. I hope Helen 
has decided to come to us for Christmas. We must 
draw together over our broken links, you know. 
Miles and Nutty both away! The little girl is a great 
loss to me, but her aunt was in such dire trouble at 
the death of both her daughters from Roman fever 
that, when she came back to America and begged for 
Ursula, we felt obliged to send her off. Dick and 
Bonnibel will have to do double duty in cheering us 
old people. And this is no time,” here the good man 
unconsciously groaned aloud, “when our land has 
passed under the pillar of cloud, for Christian men 
who love their country to give their days to idle pleas- 
uring. So, take it all and all, we are not likely to be 

gay.” 

January saw the secession of Mississippi, Alabama, 
Georgia, and Florida, to join hands with their hot- 
blooded little sister State. By the time April had 
again girdled the green slopes of the James River 
country with flowers, there was no longer room for 
much doubt of the intention of the Old Dominion. 
On the seventeenth of that month the ordinance of 
secession was adopted by the Convention of Virginia, 
“subject to popular vote,” and the populace said, — war! 
The first gun fired in the bombardment of Fort Sum- 
ter had loosened the tongue of the most chary of 
speech among them. The excitement was universal. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


190 

and no voice was now heard but bade God speed the 
independence of the South. With the formal proffer 
of his sword to Virginia, by her true son and trained 
soldier, Colonel Robert Edward Lee, and his assign- 
ment to the command of her forces, a feeling of 
security was established that went far to dismiss 
doubt from the mind of the most conservative. And 
when, on the first day of May, was heard the call of 
the Governor of the State for volunteers to defend 
her from invasion, thousands of willing swords flashed 
in the air. 

The Colonel, going to Richmond to meet Miles on 
his return from Italy, put his arm within that of his 
splendid young soldier, and proudly walked to the 
Governor’s house in the Capitol Square, where, in an 
interview with his old friend, the Executive, he re- 
ported both himself and Captain Throckmorton, late 
of his Majesty King Victor Emmanuel’s service, 
as ready for military duty to the State; and they 
were in due time and with due formality assigned 
to their respective commands. The Reverend Talia- 
ferro Crabtree, who, like the “fine Irish gentleman all 
of the olden time,” had a rooted objection to being left 
out “when such good stuff as this was flying around 
his head,” offered himself as Chaplain, and was as- 
signed to the regiment of infantry to which Miles was 
appointed Major. Peyton Willis, clutching eagerly at 
the first straw of opportunity for active service, had 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


191 

been a volunteer at the capture of Harper’s Ferry; 
he had there joined a company of artillery reporting 
to Col. Thomas J. (afterwards “Stonewall”) Jackson, 
and was by that officer mustered into the army for 
the war. 

Of the other friends and neighbors of Flower de 
Hundred, none were found satisfied to hug the hearth- 
stone or remain hand on the plow. Men of advanc- 
ing years, whose gray hairs had earned the honorable 
right to stay, enlisted as privates side by side with 
boys of sixteen who had strained away from their 
mother’s tears and kisses. Richmond, already the 
center of activity, and on the first day of June to be 
the Capital of the new Government, was filled with 
daily arriving volunteers from the more distant coun- 
ties, most of them eager to furnish their own uni- 
forms, horses, and personal equipments. Citizens of 
easy fortune like Richard Throckmorton, who had 
also fitted out a company in his grandson’s regiment, 
gave money, horses, mules, and supplies for the gath- 
ering troops. 

And Dick? He had lingered — not so much on the 
score of his wife, who already made altars before him, 
sacrificing thereon as full a measure of praise and 
petting as if the world contained no other man than 
hers — but for the sake of his little great-grandmother, 
who could not consent to give him up. 

To the young, that war in its infancy inspired more 


192 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


of exhilaration than of awe. Turning its gala face 
upon them, it dazzled but did not dismay. The very 
air seemed to thrill with joyous clamor, with clatter of 
swords and rattle of guns, with squeak of fifes and 
roll of drums. Inside the plantation gates — with the 
gaping negroes and the crops rippling like seas of em- 
erald, and the old-time ways that made life as comfort- 
able as rest on a feather-bed — was stagnation, pure and 
simple. Who that had blood in his veins and virile 
force to carry him away could bear to loll there at 
ease and read in the newspaper about his brothers in 
the fight? The women were as eager as the men. 
All over the South they were standing bareheaded at 
their house doors in the spring sunshine, swallowing 
sighs, affecting cheerfulness, waving hands and hand- 
kerchiefs till their horsemen had spurred out of 
sight. 

How noble he looks (“my husband ” or “my boy") 
in uniform / No one sits a horse as well as he ! How 
bright his eyes are , and his smile ! He will ride into 
battle looking so, and the foe will fly before him! And 
it is I — I — who have given this hero to my country ; 
therefore I will not weep , but rather exult that he is 
mine, and lam his ! 

But to the aged, who had long since narrowed their 
universe into the radius of home, it was harder to 
face these partings; and Mrs. Throckmorton, at first, 
begged Dick to stay with her, at least until after har- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 193 

vest, as her son Richard had convinced himself it 
was his duty to go at once. 

Dick promised, and found enough to do to fill his 
days, for, although Sampson, the faithful overseer, 
had shown no symptoms of intention to forsake their 
interests, the negroes were uneasy, and the general 
interruption to agricultural industries throughout the 
country had already begun to affect their own. The 
Colonel, in command of a regiment of State infantry, 
temporarily encamped near Richmond, came now and 
again to look after them. He was in good spirits, 
hopeful of results, and seemed to have taken a new 
lease of life. 

“Since Richard was a little fellow, I have never 
opposed him when he has once made up his mind,’' 
said the old lady, in her flute-like voice. “He was 
always kind to me, even before his sorrows that made 
him kind to every one. But there were certain things 
no one could have stopped him from doing, I believe. 
I often think, Polly, my dear, that there is a streak of 
him in Miles. Ah, me! God knows best, but I did 
hope we were settled in peace when dear Dick got 
Bonnibel to be his wife.” 

“Now, Aunt dear, I’ll not have you sighing,” cried 
brisk Miss Polly. “As our days so shall our strength 
be, you know better than I. And if it wont tire you, 
suppose you scrape a little lint while you are sitting 
there. I’m planning to send a box off to Richard’s 

13 


194 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


camp, to-morrow, with fresh vegetables and eggs and 
things, and I think I’ll put in some bandages and lint. 
There’s always sickness, and there may be something 
worse.” 

“May I come in, Granny?” said Dick, putting his 
head in at the door. “I’ve news for you. Miles 
will be down to-day, or to-morrow, to spend a night 
with us.” 

“Miles!” exclaimed both ladies in delight. 

For, what with one interruption or another, there 
had always been some reason why the wanderer had 
not yet, a month after arrival in the country, put in an 
appearance at his home. The tales of his beauty and 
his prowess had filled their hearts and overflowed their 
lips continually. Dick, who had seen him in Rich- 
mond, the Colonel, and Miss Polly who achieved a 
pilgrimage on the boat to cry all hail to the family 
hero, reported that Miles’s soldiering had made of him 
the best-looking fellow in the new service, and that 
was saying much. 

There were, on the young man’s side, many conflict- 
ing emotions to keep him away from the old place 
and its new mistress. He had indeed put off going 
until he could, in decency, do so no longer. As on 
horseback he now journeyed leisurely along the famil- 
iar roads leading southward from town, Miles began 
to feel the sting of an old-time wound apparently 
long healed. The thought of Bonnibel’s radiant face 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


I 95 


again turned upon him, of her white neck and hand, 
her dropping auburn hair, made his head swim for a 
time. He remembered having stood half of one sum- 
mer night watching her window in the wing, then in a 
tumult throwing himself on horseback to ride madly 
through the woods till daybreak, fording streams, 
jumping fences, anything to rid himself of the fever in 
his blood. A-ah ! that was sharp ; but the pang had 
left him, all the same. Why, a year ago it would 
have staggered him ! And, presently, under the spell 
of the blossoming woods, he began to troll a song, to 
*ieel a school-boy’s delight at returning home for holi- 
day, to wonder whether Bonnibel still had that little 
obstinate way of holding on to an immaterial point 
which in a wife must be so very trying. A woman 
with a square jaw like hers was pretty sure to fight 
about little things, he’d noticed — ! Miles laughed 
aloud. Now, for certain, he knew himself to be no 
longer the desperate lad who had flung himself away 
from home and fatherland for the sake of a creature 
made up of milk and roses. As he rode along, his 
brain cleared, his pulse held firm, his heart beat only 
at thought of returning home and casting down 
before them all the laurels he had won. He experi- 
enced a joyous thrill at the idea of visiting Mammy 
Judy’s cabin and telling the dear old soul about his 
soldier’s life in Sicily. Grandmamma and Cousin 
Polly appeared before his mind’s eye crowned with 


196 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

separate aureoles. Dick’s wife, his old-time charmer, 
was only one of the home procession, thank God, and 
his passion for her was over. 

Two interruptions there were to the serene enjoy- 
ment of his return to Flower de Hundred — one, the 
doubt whether he could yet look with resignation 
upon the inheritance he might have had ; the other, 
Nutty’s absence. For with every precious remem- 
brance of boyhood in these places, his faithful little 
henchwoman was blended. In the babble of a hidden 
stream its course betrayed by green things growing 
and blowing on the banks, he seemed to hear her 
laugh. A veritable sprite of the forest was Nutty, so 
keenly alive to the melodies and mysteries of Nature 
in her secret haunts ; so light of foot ; so tireless in 
the saddle ; so quick in sympathy. Poor little girl ! 
He should miss her dreadfully. And under a quiver- 
ing canopy of gum-trees he checked his horse upon a 
carpet of fairy-flax, to take from his breast-pocket and 
read again a letter, the last to come from Ursula. 

“Away off on the banks of the beautiful Hudson, the 
spring fever in my veins is all for dear old Virginia,” 
Nutty wrote. “They are good to me here, this place 
is exquisite, but ‘it’s hame, hame in my ain countree, 
I fain wad be,’ little, wretched, homesick thing that 
I am ! Miles, I trod, out walking, on a shoot of garlic 
in the grass, and presto ! the smell of it carried me 
back to the day I was puzzling out my second Eclogue 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


197 


in the parlor closet on the chest. The Parson had 
scolded me, and I loathed Virgil. You came in to get 
some corks for your seine from off the upper shelf. 
You sat down on the chest, and lent me your handker- 
chief to wipe my eyes, for my pocket was torn out and 
its contents lost, as usual ( — do you remember ‘Lucy 
Locket’ was my name with you?). Then, you read 
how Thestylis put garlic in with the herbs to mix her 
salad, while around her sat the reapers resting in the 
heat of the day — that salad brought back my wander- 
ing interest in the classics — how well I understand 
now the hold those trifles about home had on you in 
Sicily ! But I must not trust myself to write. I don’t 
dare hope to get away. My poor aunt is heart-broken, 
and dependent on me, every day — I hear things said 
constantly that make it doubly hard to stay; but 
then how can I go? People are very kind. I think 
they see I am lonely and that I am trying to do right. 
My uncle is kinder, too ; he is much changed since the 
loss of the poor girls; but he can’t help wounding me 
about politics. Every meal is seasoned with them. I 
cant answer back; and 1 get up with a swelling heart, 
and run and weep my heart out in my room. I am 
sixteen only, but I feel twenty. Yes, you will see how 
I have grown and aged! Here I am always ‘Ursula.’ 
I allow none but the Flower de Hundred people to 
call me ‘Nutty’ — that is more than enough about my- 
self! Good-by, dear Miles, I have your parcel still. 
It shall never leave me till I give it into your hands. 
For you will come out of this war safe and victorious, 
I feel. Oh, with such a cause ! oh, if I were a man ! — ” 

“Poor bird, fluttering behind golden bars,” he mused. 


198 FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 

putting her letter back. “Home isn’t home without 
her.” 

Miles, at his own request, went to bed that night 
in the old nursery on the ground-floor where Tarlton’s 
troopers had stabled their steeds — Dick’s vacant cot 
beside his own. The walls, the deep-mouthed chim- 
ney-place, the screen around the wash-stand, where 
Dick and he, like Beau Brummell in his exile, had 
pasted a fine mosaic of many pictures during their 
convalescence after measles, still bore the marks of 
their boyish mischief or ingenuity. After he had 
blown his candle out, the hero of Melazzo, and of 
the more recent daring venture into Calabria as a spy, 
by which the cross of the Legion of Honor had been 
won, hesitated a moment, then knelt down by his bed 
and thanked God for bringing him safe home. 

A great peace had come into his heart. The past 
with all its bitterness was gone. Before him lay a sol- 
dier’s future. He fell asleep listening with a pleased 
ear to the twitter of swallows in the chimney, and the 
rustle of flying-squirrels on the low roof. 

Shaken though he was by Miles’s visit home, Dick 
remained at the plantation as long as the troops were 
inactive around Richmond and ladies were calling at 
the camp and there were tea-parties and gay battalion 
drills. But as the month of June wore away, and the 
order came to move forward to Manassas, facing the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


199 


outposts beyond which gathered host upon host of 
splendidly equipped soldiers from the North, the strain 
became too much for him. Bonnibel, finding that he 
was fretting his heart out to be gone, told Cousin 
Polly, who told Grandmamma; and so, one day Dick 
was summoned into the old lady’s room, where she 
signed to those present to leave her alone with him. 

The very sight of her was one to calm excited 
thought. Sitting in the deep arm-chair where the chil- 
dren had always carried to her their joys and troubles, 
she looked so waxen white, so flower-like, he was 
tempted to throw himself on his knees, clasp her 
around the waist, and laying his yellow head upon her 
lap, offer again to do only what she wished. Little 
knowing that she had sent for him to deliberately rid 
herself of this dear prop, he longed to lend to her his 
youthful strength. 

‘‘Here I am, Granny darling; so glad you want me,” 
Dick said. 

“My own dear!” the old lady said, smoothing his 
locks. Not even Bonnibel’s touch affected him like 
hers. 

“What is it, sweetheart, something I can do for 
you?” he asked. 

“Oh, my son, my son, you have done for me 
enough!” she cried, pitifully moved. “Never shall it 
be said that I held back child of mine from the way 
his duty pointed him to go.” 


200 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


Dick started up, the glad blood tingling in his veins. 

“Then you give me leave, Granny! You have taken 
a mill-stone from my heart.” 

“Was it so bad as that, Dick? Well, I am blinder 
than I thought — and more selfish than I thought !” 

They talked long and intimately, Dick emerging 
from the room with a look of exaltation on his face. 
She had given him her benediction, and with it had ex- 
haled the aroma of a pure life, whose days had been 
made more lovely by his love ; she had girded on his 
sword that must never be drawn unworthily of her. 

And over all our broad land, North and South, 
partings were going on like this. They sanctified the 
ends for which both sides were fighting; they lifted 
men out of the ignoble into heroism ; they filled the 
ranks of blue and gray with soldiers of a caliber no 
other nation’s history has surpassed — and they filled, 
alas ! innumerable graves. 

Manassas was fought, and the existence of a South- 
ern Confederacy was proved to be more than a mere 
castle in Spain erected by restless politicians. From 
that day the steady swing of the tremendous pendu- 
lum went on. With the opening of the second year’s 
campaign, the theater of events was transferred again 
to Richmond and its vicinity. Colonel Throckmorton, 
who had been able during the spring to make only 
a brief visit to his home, found, thanks to the indefatig- 
able care of Sampson and Miss Polly, that matters 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


201 


were progressing there more favorably than he had 
dared to hope. With regard to many negroes who 
saw the way unimpeded between them and freedom, 
it was not to be supposed they would not avail them- 
selves of the opportunity to seek it. There had, in 
fact, been instructions from the Colonel to his overseer 
to make no effort to restrain those who showed any 
desire to go. A number of the younger field hands, 
therefore, had tied up their bandana bundles and 
were off to the disillusionment falling to the portion 
of so many “contrabands.” The work of the place 
thus interrupted, the results of its various industries 
were correspondingly reduced ; but the household had 
known no hardships other than the inevitable alarm 
and anxiety, the fruit of civil war. Early in May, 
1862, the ladies, from the windows of the drawing- 
room at Flower de Hundred, saw a fleet of United 
States gunboats steam past them in gallant style, and 
heard a loud-mouthed but unavailing protest from 
the Confederate batteries stationed farther up the 
river bank. 

A few days later, Norfolk was occupied by the 
Federals, and the Confederate watch-dog, Merrimac , 
so long the terror of the enemy’s fleets, was destroyed 
by the masters she had served. The river now became 
an unimpeded highway, along which the war-ships of 
the Union made haste to push, to aid in the siege of 
Richmond. Two grim monsters of the deep, the 


202 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Monitor and the Naugatuck , having joined in safety 
the flotilla beneath Drewry’s Bluff, an engagement 
occurred which, had the shore batteries been silenced 
and passed, might have carried the Union troops in 
triumph to the goal of all their hopes, and so ended 
the war. But the Confederates stood firm ; the panic 
at Richmond was allayed, and during the month of 
flowers, the “bridal of earth and sky” along the James, 
this terrible pageant of armed ships continued to pass 
and repass without accomplishing much more than 
startling the birds from their nests, and driving the 
cattle away from their grazing places in purple clover 
that reached to the water’s edge. 

At this juncture of affairs, Cousin Polly congratu- 
lated herself that she had “sent Bell into Richmond, 
where, whether comfortable or not, the child can get 
to her husband if he needs her.” The household, 
consisting now of the two older ladies only, was rein- 
forced by Sampson, who had been brought into the 
Great House to sleep. Throughout the neighborhood 
everywhere, the men-folk had betaken themselves to 
be part and parcel of the fray, the women and children 
following to huddle into lodgings in Richmond. Old 
Tom Hazleton, brave as Mars himself, had volun- 
teered ; and Septimius Ackley made a soldier of the 
best. (Poor Sabina undertook to keep a boarding- 
house in town, with but indifferent results!) None 
stopped to count the cost. All felt sanguine of the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


203 


early deliverance of Richmond from her foes. This 
universal movement to protect the Capital it was, 
that brought about the curious desertion of neighbor- 
hoods so often noted in the Northern memoirs of 
the time. Ride for miles through the rich country 
weighted with neglected crops, and you might see 
only improvident negroes left in charge, stock wander- 
ing in woods or fields, hospitable manor houses or 
farm-houses with shutters closed and chimneys send- 
ing forth no smoke — a Canaan for tramps and weary 
foot-soldiers ! 

Inside the beleaguered city, people had their full 
share of trial, but it was better, they agreed, than the 
uncertainty of the excluded. Hardly was there to be 
found a house among the substantial dwellings set 
back in the magnolia-shaded gardens of the chief 
streets, that had not sent its male creature to 
strengthen the line of steel about the town. Most of 
the humble homes, as well, had given their treasures. 
These men were literally defending hearth-stones, and, 
banded with volunteers as ardent as themselves, were 
soon to fight with the fury and devotion of their for- 
bears in all history. 

From the women and non-combatants left behind, 
there arose and swelled toward the army one of those 
waves of spontaneous and exalted gratitude that nerve 
the soul to any trial while the energies are in action. 
In the dreadful hospital preparations, that in the 


204 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

South became drawing-room work and a part of 
domestic life everywhere, gentle and simple, residents 
and “refugees” joined. Of the tremendous strain they 
were under, there was no time to think. Outwardly 
calm and collected, crushing down the sick fear of 
what might be to come, each gave a daily offering, 
nor counted it a tax. 

One little scene of every day, to show the common 
lot ! On the morning of the battle of “Seven Pines” or 
“Fair Oaks,” as it is variously known, young Richard 
Throckmorton spurred his horse along muddy roads, 
bearing a message from camp to the Executive in 
Richmond. During the half hour that must elapse be- 
fore an answer to his Chief could be prepared, he gal- 
loped up the shady street where his wife had found 
shelter with some friends. 

Bell, sewing behind the bowed shutters of the draw- 
ing-room, caught sight through the pink snow of the 
crape myrtles that shaded the garden gate of her 
young Captain of cavalry dismounting. With a scream 
of delight she ran out to meet him, and, regardless of 
passers-by, — who were indeed all sympathizers, and to 
whom these little outbursts were too common to be 
remarked, — threw around Dick’s neck two lovely arms, 
from which the summer sleeves had floated back, and 
laid upon the Captain’s insignia embroidered on his 
collar, a cheek of peach-blow hue. 

“Dick, Dick, how glorious that you have come to- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


205 


day,” she cried. “Hurry, hurry into my room before 
he’s gone to sleep. Will you believe, I saw it first this 
morning?” 

“What? Where?” said bewildered Captain Dick. 

“Of course, I mean his tooth,” answered she disdain- 
fully. 

And there on a pillow, moist and pink and beauti- 
ful, lay Dick’s first-born, crowing unconscious of the 
turmoil of the hour. At sight of him and his radiant 
mother hovering over, the young man, who had not 
slept a wink all night, who was mud-splashed to his 
middle, dizzy with riding in the sun, and hungry as a 
hawk, felt his heart leap in happiness. 

Bonnibel enthroned him in an easy-chair, brought 
food and cooling drinks and fans, while chatting cease- 
lessly of him and herself and the baby. Dick, dread- 
ing to break the spell of exquisite repose, answered 
her hardly at all. She had evidently no idea of his 
mission, and with love shining in his blue eyes, he 
gazed at her as they sat hand in hand above the baby’s 
crib. Then, mingling with the honey of her voice 
distilled upon his ear, came a long, low, rumbling 
sound that jarred on the sultry air. “Oh, what is it?” 
faltered the wife seeing him spring to his feet. 

“It’s the guns! The fight’s begun,” Dick said 
hoarsely. “And I’ve no right to be here.” 

It w r as but a moment he gave himself to kiss her 
baby first and then Bell, on eyes, and cheeks, and lips ; 


206 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


to strain her to his fiercely beating heart. Neither 
spoke, and no words could have availed. With a chill 
as of death upon him, Dick strode down the garden 
walk with clanking sword and spurs, and vaulted upon 
his horse. Through her tears she saw his boyish figure 
in the stained gray uniform bend to the saddle-bow as 
he waved his cap and tried to smile. Another rumble, 
cut short by the receding gallop of Dick’s horse ! Bell 
staggered back into the room and snatching up her 
baby held him to her heart to still its pain. 

And again, and again, and again sounded the cannon 
of Seven Pines! Until sunset, it did not cease. Till 
far into the night people in Richmond thronged the 
pavements, eager for tidings. “Victory for the South,’’ 
was the word passed from lip to lip, and then — the 
ambulances came ! Wagons, carts, caissons, were 
among the vehicles impressed for this drear proces- 
sion, some bound for the temporary hospitals fitted up 
in buildings cleared for the occasion, some to halt be- 
fore private dwellings, where their stopping stilled the 
heart-beats of the occupants till after the worst was 
known. Victory, and a repulse of the enemy! How 
hard to realize their worth in the presence of dead and 
dying, wounded and suffering, who by dawn of the 
first of June appeared to fill the town! By this time 
the guns were again at their bloody work, and a blaz- 
ing sun poured its intolerable heat upon the crowded 
thoroughfares ! 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


207 


Early on that Sunday morning, a messenger brought 
to Bell a note from Dick telling her that he and Miles 
were safe, but that the dear Colonel, receiving a severe 
wound in the right arm, had been taken to a private 
hospital in Grace Street, where she was bidden to go 
with all haste and devote herself to him. Bell, in her 
hysterical delight over her own good tidings, kissed 
the smoke-stained billet, and hastened to do its behest. 

She found the old man weak from loss of blood. 
They had amputated his arm ; and, at his age, there 
was grave danger from exhaustion. But he was calm 
and quiet, and gave her a sweet smile of greeting. It 
was characteristic of the courteous gentleman that he 
should have first motioned to her to preserve her mus- 
lin gown from the blood that still oozed from his ban- 
daged stump. Dazed from the chloroform, when she 
bent over him to fan his forehead and supply a drop of 
stimulant, he called her “wife” and “Mildred,” bidding 
her not to cry, since Phil had come through the battle 
without harm. 

Bell, with her nurse and baby, took up her abode in 
the house of which the Colonel had a little room in the 
third story. An attic, hastily cleared of rubbish, and 
cleaned for their accommodation, contained a mattress 
on the floor for her, when she could snatch time for 
rest. The heat was intolerable, the resources for com- 
fort few, and on the afternoon of the fourth day, when 
Miles rode in from the front to look after his grand- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


2oS 

father, he found, to his alarm, that the child was 
sickening, and that Bell might not, without danger to 
its life, be allowed to remain at her present post. 

The Colonel, making better progress than they had 
dared to expect, would not hear of her remaining; 
and Miles, with a heart-felt sigh for the presence of 
Cousin Polly, started on a weary quest in search of a 
proper nurse. What at another time would have 
been an easy matter, was made difficult by the tax 
put upon the generous townspeople by the numbers 
of sufferers for whom their preparations had proved 
inadequate. With listless steps he walked under 
floods of withering sunshine over the burning bricks 
of the sidewalks, turning away from house after house 
whence nobody could be spared, and finally engaging, 
in despair, a man of whose skill he could not feel con- 
fident. Returning to Grace Street with his prize in 
tow, he climbed the uncarpeted stairway. In the 
sound of a woman’s draperies upon the landing near 
the Colonel’s room, he divined some one of the anx- 
ious friends who were daily coming to offer service. 
What was his delight at the apparition, at the head of 
the last flight, of the tall, stately young person, who 
greeted him with finger upon lip. 

“Hush!” she whispered, “I came directly you had 
left, and he’s been dozing ever since. The very best 
sleep he’s had, Dr. Ferguson says.” 

“Ursula! Have you dropped out of the skies?” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


209 


“No,” she said, blushing at his warmth. “Quite 
the contrary. I’ve been running the blockade.” 

“Alone?” he said, darkling. 

“Oh, no ! I had refugees in plenty. More than I 
cared for, and almost no adventures. We were in 
Washington when the news of the battle came, and I 
saw his name in the list of Confederate wounded. 
After that, cart ropes couldn’t have held me there.” 

"‘But your aunt — your uncle?” 

“I believe I frightened them into giving their con- 
sent. My uncle went off saying he washed his hands 
of me — but she was, oh, so good ! I shall be grateful 
to her always. She found people coming South and 
helped me in every way. Oh, Miles, she saw — every- 
body must have seen — that, rather than not get to 
him I’d have crawled on my hands and knees.” 

“My dear, brave little Nutty,” he began, taking her 
hand to stroke it, and then stopped, struck by the 
incongruity of his diminutive. 

While she whispered her tale of travels, his eyes 
took in with keen appreciation the lines of her splen- 
did form, the deepened luster of her wide brown 
eyes, the indescribable rounding into graceful woman- 
hood of his whilom boyish comrade. Coming to him 
in this moment of sore need, linked to him by a com- 
mon sympathy amid these poor surroundings, she 
shone like a star of hope. Whatever impressions of 

their interview Ursula in turn derived, they were 
14 


210 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


merged, with every energy of her nature, into the task 
of winning their beloved invalid back from the jaws 
of death. 

In this, Miles returning at once to duty, she was 
aided by old Saul, who, following, dog-like, his master 
to the war, had, in the first day of the fight, been 
stunned by a spent ball and left on the field for dead. 
Coming to life like a chilled fly upon a sun-warmed 
pane of glass, Saul had made his slow way to Rich- 
mond and so to the Colonel’s side. 

“No, I’se ’bleeged to you, Miss Nutty an’ Marse 
Miles,” the patriarch had said, when urged by them 
to retire and take his rest, “my duty’s to my mistis, 
an’ I kyant think o’ leaving Marse Richard to no 
young folks’s hands. When I’se ready to gin out, 
you’ll hear it, and not before. Reckon I aint put dat 
ar little Doctor Ferguson out’n my pantry, along wi’ 
Marse Miles, many a time, fo’ rummagin’ de dishes I 
dun sot out for dessart? Think I’m gwine to trus’ my 
master wid any little shavers like dat, widout watchin’ 
out to see dey don’ play no tricks?” 

In vain Ursula pleaded the skill, the unflagging care 
of the young assistant surgeon by whom his old 
friend was served so tenderly; Saul was obdurate, 
keeping vigil by the bed like Fine Ear of the fairy 
tale, quick to detect the faintest movement of the 
sufferer and to forestall his wants. 

Installed in her attic chamber, living from hand to 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


211 


mouth and in dire discomfort although she was, Ur- 
sula felt happier than before in months. A daily visit 
from Bonnibel, a glimpse at Miles whenever he could 
get off for a gallop into town, the sympathy of kind 
people who pressed around them with every offer that 
good feeling could desire, — above all, the sense that 
her vigorous health and rich vitality were now of the 
utmost service to her beloved Colonel, — nerved her 
continually. 

But it was a hard time for all of them. The stifling 
heat, the cruel lack of ice during that battle-summer, 
the suffering in the town that was now one vast hos- 
pital, made the June days seem twice their torrid 
length and the nights as bad. Just when the Colonel 
gave some faint indication of a rally that might be 
counted upon as permanent, Bonnibel’s baby showed 
symptoms of again succumbing to the heat, and to 
save it the young mother was forced to make all 
speed to the hill-country, in a direction in which the 
railway lines were fortunately open. 

Bell had not seen her husband since the day of 
Seven Pines. Except when on special service, every 
man held to his post, in front. Heavy-hearted at the 
despairing necessity of leaving town without another 
glimpse of him, she set out for a region remote from 
the stir of war. Ursula, taking time from her own 
busy day — for in addition to her care for the Colonel, 
she had assumed duties as a volunteer nurse in other 


212 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


wards of the little hospital — to see Dick’s little family 
off, turned back again to her patients with a sigh. It 
seemed to her that the air was full of the partings of 
those who loved. 

On the afternoon of the same day, she received 
from an orderly dispatched by Miles, information that 
a body of cavalry to which Dick was assigned had set 
out that morning on an expedition of which the aim 
was not announced, but which, in view of the rations 
taken, would presumably be short. Miles’s note in- 
closed one scribbled on a leaf of his pocket-book to 
his grandfather, from Dick. 


'‘God bless you and all my dear ones. For us this 
move is glorious. Anything’s better than such harass- 
ing waits between the acts. We start, presently, none 
of us know whither; but, with Stuart at the fore, what 
matters it? I shall have never heard the bugles sing 
out ‘Boots and Saddles’ with a gladder heart. If I 
don’t come back, you and Miles will take care of her 
and him , I know — 

< T ” 

"Ah, me ! I’d have liked to see my lad before he 
started,” said the Colonel wistfully, after Ursula had 
finished reading him these lines. "And I’d like 
mightily to know what Jeb Stuart’s little game is, in 
this move.” 

Doubts upon this score were, a few days later, set 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


213 


conclusively at rest, by the announcement to the 
expectant public of an event chronicled in the Rich- 
mond journals, under head-lines, as below: 

“A Brilliant Reconnoissance by Stuart’s Cavalry — 
They make the Circuit of the Enemy’s Lines on the 
Chickahominy — Capture and Dispersion of Yankee 
Cavalry — Burning of Three Transports in the Pamun- 
key — Capture and Destruction of a Wagon Train — A 
Railroad Train Surprised, etc., etc.” 

This much for glory and a little niche in history ! 
Farther down the column and in much smaller type, 
among the few casualties of the brilliant raid with 
whose praises the Southern country rang, was men- 
tioned the lamented death, while leading his men in a 
fierce hand to hand skirmish with a squadron of the 
enemy’s cavalry whom they had put to rout, of 
Captain Richard Throckmorton of the — th Virginia 
cavalry. 

At the moment when Dick, shot through the body 
with five balls, fell from his horse upon the roadside, 
his comrades were borne impetuously forward in pur- 
suit of a flying column of the enemy, another pressing 
them upon the rear, and the spot was for a time 
deserted. They found him — the skirmish ended — 
lying upon his back amid the ferns, looking straight 
upward to the sky with a smile upon his lips. One of 
the bullets had shivered the glass of Bonnibel’s picture 
on his breast, staining it with his blood. While his 


214 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


troopers sorrowing and uncertain stood around their 
young leader’s body, the General, who had heard of 
the occurrence, rode up, his genial face dark and 
drawn with grief. Situated as the Confederates then 
were, well in the rear of McClellan’s army and likely 
at any moment to be attacked by Federal cavalry 
desiring to cut off their retreat, the Chief decided to 
send the body to Dick’s own home, in charge of old 
Jock who had been the young man’s constant attend- 
ant in the field 

Hands tender as women’s lifted the dead Captain 
across the saddle, the horse standing intelligently still 
while his burden was bound in place. Jock, mount- 
ing his own steed, took both bridles — every hat was 
doffed, every head bowed. 

A moment later, the Confederates were in saddle 
and sweeping forward like a cloud driven by the wind 
to rejoin their advancing column, and their dead com- 
rade was alone with Jock. 

In the bright light of a full moon, the old negro 
journeyed with his charge. To avoid notice, he had 
remained until nightfall in a secluded wood. Once 
only, he encountered a Federal vidette, but after a 
few questions and answers was allowed to pass unmo- 
lested on his way — the soldiers in blue falling back 
reverently when the moon shone on the still face of 
the dead. And at sunrise next morning, the heir of 
Flower de Hundred came into his own. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


215 


There was bitter lamenting among the negroes 
remaining on the place. Old Judy left her chimney- 
side to perform with her own hands the last rites of 
the toilet for her boy. Jock, with the help of another 
ancient, fashioned the rude coffin in which, covered 
from sight with flowers, they carried Dick across the 
field-path to the little church. 

It was to her who had made of him an idol, that all 
eyes turned in affectionate solicitude. She was very 
quiet, sitting at his head, changing here and there a 
spray of the white Lamarque roses he had aided her to 
plant, and stroking his flaxen locks until they came to 
carry him away. Cousin Polly, who had broken to her 
this news, so soon following that of her son’s wound, 
pleaded with her not to be present at the interment. 
But she answered that, since in their isolated position 
it was impossible to secure the services of a clergyman 
at the grave, she had determined to take the duty on 
herself. 

Gathered about the yawning space they stood — the 
ladies, Sampson, who could not see for crying, and the 
negroes — while in a clear voice, audible to all present, 
the aged saint read or recited the funeral service of the 
Church. 

Some marveled at the peace upon her face as she 
turned her last look upon her darling’s new-made 
grave. They could not see that in her eyes it was but 
the shutting of a gate that must open soon for her. 


21 6 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


This episode of the battle-summer impelled an old 
man upon his bed of pain in Richmond to turn groan- 
ing to the wall and beg God to take him too ; and it 
flashed over the wires to Dick’s wife, sitting with her 
ailing child upon her knees, and blotted the sunshine 
from her world. 


CHAPTER VII. 


“COME, Ursula, it is your duty to yourself,” urged 
Miles. 

She gave him a wan smile, and handing her fan to 
Saul rose up from the Colonel’s bedside. The critical 
relapse of her patient after his grandson’s death, had 
taxed to the utmost even her superb physique. An 
outing after night-fall was now her chief opportunity 
for exercise. Miles, borne down under the weight of 
sorrow that robbed his soldier life of charm, had come 
into town to look after them, finding the Colonel bet- 
ter but listless and disinclined to rally, and his young 
nurse pale and weary. 

They went out into an atmosphere unrefreshed by a 
recent thunder-storm, and freighted to oppression with 
the scent of rain-washed flowers — an atmosphere so 
sluggish that it seemed by burning exhalations to re- 
sent even disturbance with a fan. During those June 
days in the great hospital-camp, the chief social inter- 
change of friends was thus held after dark. From the 
houses would issue bands of pilgrims, white robed, 
bareheaded, carrying palm leaves, longing for a breeze 
that came not, sauntering slowly under the gas-lamps, 
over pavements that had not parted with their noon- 


2 1 8 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


tide heat. After this fashion, greetings and inquiries 
were exchanged, movements of the armies were dis- 
cussed, the irrepressible making of love went on ! 
When visits were received, it was always upon veran- 
das, or sitting on the front steps. Few cared to linger 
in rooms where, from dawn till dawn again, no drop in 
temperature was perceived. 

Amid all other pre-occupations, it was clear to Ur- 
sula that since Dick’s death an excitement to which 
she had no clew had been fermenting under the self- 
restraint Miles showed to the world at large. What- 
ever it might mean, he had several times seemed to 
be upon the point of confiding in her, and on each 
occasion had reined himself into a reserve more obsti- 
nate than before. As they walked side by side, grieved 
at this gloomy silence, she turned over in her mind 
every method by which she might venture to explore 
his depression. Woman-like, in her solicitude to ease 
his share of their common burden, she forgot how large 
a portion of it was borne on her own slight shoulders. 

“This is poor entertainment for you, Nutty,” he said, 
at last, rousing into consciousness of his abstrac- 
tion. “It looks as if I were forgetting that you are a 
traveled young woman now, who has a right to expect 
suavities from her cavalier.” 

“Nonsense, Miles; if you ever begin to be polite to 
me, I shall think we have quarreled in dead earnest. 
My dear boy, nothing can blind me to the fact that 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


219 


you’ve some trouble on your mind, over and above 
that I share with you.” 

“God help me, so I have,” he burst out ; “and if 
any human being could be bettered by speaking of it, 
it would be you I’d turn to, first.” 

“That ought to content me. But, unfortunately, it 
doesn’t.” 

“Rest assured, daughter of Eve, that there is noth- 
ing you or any one can do to alter the situation. 
The matter is, so to speak, an abstraction — a case of 
conscience, if you will — and, though I’ve looked at it 
in every aspect, I can see nothing for me but to con- 
tinue to hold my tongue.” 

“It would relieve you to speak out?” 

“So much so, that I have never felt the temptation 
as strong as now. But there, I’m babbling like a child. 
Talk to me of yourself, of the dear Colonel.” 

“He is a daily, hourly lesson in patience and forti- 
tude. In his sympathy for Bell, his own grief is sub- 
merged. He dreads the effect of this new blow on 
Grandmamma; but, withal, I’ve seen his eye light up 
when you are mentioned, and he smiled — oh, so 
sweetly, when I read Bell’s letter saying Dick’s boy 
grows stronger every day. My dear Miles, what ails 
you?” 

“I suppose it’s the mental strain. My nerves are 
mere fiddle-strings. One thing is certain, that you 
put me to the blush. When I think of all you have 


220 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


undertaken — have so nobly carried out — and see you 
so calm, so cool — ” 

“I shall never be cool again,” she said, with at- 
tempted cheerfulness. ‘‘Let us take this street lead- 
ing to the water. I love the voice of our river at night 
when the town is still. I follow it in thought till it 
flows by dear Flower de Hundred. Is there any tie 
stronger and sweeter than the one linking us to such 
a home? The very name has a spell in it, to soothe 
and charm me — Miles, I wonder if I may speak to you 
of something about yourself.” 

“You, if any one.” 

“To-day the Colonel said, ‘This little chap makes a 
great difference to Miles.’ After a while he went on, 
‘I am glad Dick’s will named Miles as guardian. Dick 
knew — Dick knew!’ ” 

“How loud the rapids sound!” Miles answered, afraid 
of the tremor in his voice. 

“The matter seemed to be dwelling on his mind, for 
presently he said again, ‘Miles would have been mas- 
ter; it is what I’d have wished.’ Then he fell into a 
doze, and roused out of it, crying, ‘They have lopped 
its branches, but the old trunk still remains!’ The 
effort waked him, and he said, ‘I beg your pardon, I 
had forgotten where I am ; you will oblige me by 
putting my handkerchief in reach.’ And with his 
poor left hand, I saw him wipe his eyes.” 

“By Jove, I’d give years of life to see him back at 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


221 


the plantation,” Miles said, with a gulp. “And to 
think he may die here, and never know that I am — ” 

“Never know that you — ?” 

Miles did not answer. With her hand still upon his 
arm, they paused at a street corner for the passing of 
an officer’s funeral on its way to Hollywood. The 
band preceding the coffin smote on their ears with 
poignant loud lamenting, then carried its sorrow to 
die moaning on the night. As the shadowy cortege 
filed by — men bearing lanterns on either side the 
hearse — a horse, riderless, with boots empty in the 
stirrups, following — a few soldiers carrying arms re- 
versed — a single carriage with mourners — the effect was 
infinitely sad. So common the spectacle during the 
Battle Summer, it did not occur to them to even won- 
der which of our martyrs was thus journeying to his 
last home. 

“The end of soldiering!” said Miles, recovering his 
head. “Ah well, my dear, there is more than a 
chance that this kind of thing may soon cut my 
Gordian knot for me. If it comes, Ursula, you’ll re- 
member that you are my sole executor.” 

Ursula’s unexpected answer was to drop her head 
upon his arm in a passionate burst of tears. 

“My dear little girl, you are overwrought!” he said 
as genuinely distressed as he was surprised; for she 
was not of the melting kind. Wisely however, he 
made no attempt to check her. Alone in an unfre- 


222 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


quented street, they walked slowly until her emotion 
had spent its force. 

“This will relieve the strain,” he went on soothingly. 
“Poor long-suffering little heroine, I think we all for- 
get that it’s a girl-creature of seventeen who is our 
bulwark.” 

With a caressing touch he laid his hand on hers, 
but Ursula withdrawing herself almost brusquely, 
wiped her eyes. When she next spoke it was in 
her ordinary tone. 

“You overestimate my services. Do I not owe all 
I have done, and more 'a thousand times, to the one 
who has been home and father to me? I am only 
dreading lest in some way Grandmamma should hear 
how bad his condition is, for nothing would keep her 
from him, and she could not stand our life.” 

“Yes, she is a flower that will not bear transplant- 
ing,” said Miles sighing. “My chief fear is that from 
the situation of Flower de Hundred the house will be 
taken as headquarters, or as a hospital. Then they will 
be forced to push into town. But come, in the little 
time we have together let us talk of brighter things.” 

“The brightest thing I have seen to-day is the smile 

poor little Elliot, the Lieutenant of the Georgia, 

who has the room below your grandfather, bestowed 
on me when I had finished writing a letter for him to 
his mother, whose only son he is — so brave, so confi- 
dent — and I know they believe him doomed — ” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 223 

'‘Ursula, you are incorrigible. Put away your pa- 
tients for one half hour, and act and feel like other 
young women of your age. For a novelty, take a 
little interest in me. So far as heard from, I am in 
full possession of health and faculties and conse- 
quently not a legitimate object of solicitude — but 
still—” 

Ursula laughed. 

“You are your jealous, petulant old self — ” she 
interrupted him. And during the remainder of their 
walk her rather bewildered companion fell to wonder- 
ing what he could have done or said that had set 
between them a slight but evident barrier. 

At the house door, they stood aside to give passage 
to two rigid, sheeted forms, carried out, uncoffined, to 
be put in the army wagon that was to transport them 
to the morgue. As the heavy vehicle rumbled off, 
Ursula ascertained, to her dismay, that one of the 
bodies thus unceremoniously hurried from the com- 
pany of the living was that of her young friend Elliot, 
who had died since she left the hospital. 

Shocked beyond measure, she gave way to a fresh 
burst of weeping, hurriedly mounting the stairs with 
a new sense of the intolerable weight of war — Miles 
following, scarcely more hopeful of the dawn that was 
to succeed their darkest hour. 

And now what was this dream of the oppressive 
summer’s night that brought before their eyes, seated 


224 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


beside the patient, her snow-flake hand resting upon 
his head, the small fair shape of Grandmamma? What 
witchery of imagination had planted in their path 
Cousin Polly, tearful but smiling, her fond arms out- 
stretched? 

It was no time to ask or answer questions. As they 
came into his room, the sufferer, who had been lying 
with closed eyes, stirred and looked about him. Then, 
Grandmamma, calling him by her pet name of “Rit- 
chie,” bade him “be good and go to sleep.” 

They saw a wan smile flit across the old soldier’s 
face ; and, feeling for his mother’s hand to carry it to 
his lips, he again closed his eyes, and, child-like, com- 
posed himself to rest. 

“Oh, he will be better now,” whispered Ursula, with 
a glad bound of the heart. 

Late that night, sharing Ursula’s pallet beneath the 
roof in a stifling atmosphere, Cousin Polly recounted 
to eager ears the happenings at Flower de Hundred 
that had brought about their unexpected journey 
through the lines. 

“Of course, if you had known it, my dear, you’d 
have all been doubly wretched; so it’s just as well 
you didn’t — ” averred the practical narrator. 

Let us, with Ursula, hear of the strange flitting 
from Flower de Hundred. 

The ladies had kept up bravely until the massing of 
Union troops on the Peninsula, and the assemblage 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


225 


of gunboats in the river, made it clear they could no 
longer hope to preserve their home from the depreda- 
tions of an idle soldiery. Day after day Sampson came 
in with a longer face and a budget more full of petty 
annoyances, and at last advised his employers of his 
intention to “quit work for a spell,” and go North 
to look up a sister residing in the rural districts of 
New Hampshire. The honest fellow, owning himself 
“tuckered out,” in health and spirit, “ruther guessed” 
the ladies would find it to their best advantage to 
allow the house to be occupied as Headquarters by 
a conspicuous General, who had signified his willing- 
ness to thus possess it. 

Perplexed, and unwilling to own herself driven from 
the field, Miss Polly could not gainsay his arguments. 
Feeling that the debt they owed their counsellor was 
not one to be paid in money, and recognizing the com- 
mon sense of his advice, fearing of all things to harass 
with this discussion the old lady, now visibly broken, 
she bowed to the inevitable and set about hasty 
preparations to forsake their home. 

Taking into consultation Judy, Duke, and a few 
others of the negroes upon whom she might rely to 
guard the property, she determined to journey in the 
family coach over the more than thirty miles of roads 
intervening between Richmond and the plantation. 
“Any one with half an eye,” declared Miss Polly, “can 

see we are a couple of harmless old women traveling 
i5 


226 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


about our own affairs. If we are challenged by our 
own soldiers, it is sure to come all right ; and if the 
Yankees disapprove of us on general principles, they 
will never be able to resist ‘Old Miss,’ especially when 
they hear it’s a mother going to see her wounded son. 
Isaac, of course, will drive us, and we’ll need Phyllis to 
wait on her mistress. One of the wagons with a pair 
of mules will take our luggage. It isn’t the first time 
in history that a mistress of Flower de Hundred has 
been driven from home in war-time ; and, feeble 
though she may be, dear Aunt’s spirit will carry her 
through all. Besides,” she concluded, a throb of pain 
assailing her valiant heart, “He that watches over the 
sparrow’s fall will not suffer harm to come to a saint 
so near to her reward.” 

Miss Polly, once decided, went at her preparations 
with Napoleonic intrepidity and dash. And now, at 
the hour of midnight, behold in the familiar rooms of 
the old mansion, when all others on the plantation 
were wrapped in slumber, a band of conspirators in- 
cluding Sampson and the negroes admitted to confi- 
dence, at unaccustomed work. Mounted upon step- 
ladders, they detached from their nails upon the wain- 
scoting and enveloped in blankets and bed-quilts, Guy 
the founder, the Lady Mary with her lute, the gloomy 
noble, Kneller’s Miles the debonair and his smiling 
spouse Lydia, heartbroken Ursula with her sheep, the 
Burgesses, redcoats, Continentals, all of that unwinking 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


227 


company henceforth doomed to imprisonment in the 
stone chamber built after the Revolutionary war, and 
receiving their decree of exile with, it must be said, 
praiseworthy phlegm. 

Lowered into Cimmerian depths, these worthies 
were safely masked with boards, and barricaded with 
boxes containing books, household ornaments, and 
family papers, the whole heaped with hay. Then 
Sampson, emerging with cobwebbed hair and smutty 
countenance again into the upper world, withdrew 
the ladder that had aided their descent, replacing 
the rusty machinery of the old well long familiar to 
the spot. 

Such silver as could not be carried into Richmond 
was buried in pits dug in the cellar of the house. A 
sad interment by the light of lanterns, to which Miss 
Polly, a laugh on her lips and tears in her eyes, lent 
yeoman’s assistance with her little garden spade. 

Not to risk all in one place of concealment, other 
household goods were intrusted to the care of Judy, 
who weepingly declared, “Ef dat ar waugh was to 
last a thousan’ years, Miss Polly, honey, wen it lets 
out you’ll find ole Judy a-settin’ on dis chist.” 

The rising sun looked through the windows upon a 
home wearing a sad likeness to its former cheerful self. 
Bare spaces were on the walls, all of the little litterings 
of everyday, books and ornaments, were missing. The 
ladies, equipped for traveling, turning neither right nor 


228 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


left, hurried through the rooms to their carriage in 
waiting on the drive. 

The iron gates wrought in England a century be- 
fore and surmounted by the familiar wyvern crest, 
swung stiffly back, shaking the dew from the honey- 
suckle that entwined them, to fall as if in a shower of 
tears. 

To the negroes, coming up from the quarter to see 
the quality set out, this was nothing more than the 
yearly excursion to “the Springs.” Sampson, stolid 
but inwardly disconsolate, knew better, and so did 
Judy, who waddling to the carriage laid in Miss 
Polly’s lap a basket of fresh figs plucked from Miles’s 
garden plot for “Mammy’s boy”! 

Miss Polly sat bolt upright, distributing good-byes in 
her lively off-hand way. Her secret anxiety was for 
the fragile old lady at her side, who while they were in 
sight of it kept her eyes fixed upon the church-yard 
with its gleaming stones. 

Passing out of the gates, they were curiously con- 
scious of an unwonted sound. It was that of the clos- 
ing in summer of the great hall door. 

“Courage, ole Miss!” said Miss Polly, with a spirit 
she did not feel. “It will be only for a little while.” 

“Only a little while,” echoed the aged lips patiently. 

There was no sign in the peaceful landscape of the 
forces already at work that in a few weeks’ time were 
to lay it waste. Well for our travelers they were not 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 229 

to see these fields of grain trampled by the hoofs of 
horses, by the tread of battalions, by the wheels of bat- 
tery and division wagons, these roads one vast slough of 
tenacious mud ingulphing forsaken ambulances, spiked 
guns, burning stores, cast-away uniforms and mus- 
kets — all the debris of a mighty army in retreat. 

Resting for the night at the house of friends, the 
ladies pursued upon the morrow their journey into the 
Confederate lines. Meeting by good chance with no 
serious interruption, they were escorted into Rich- 
mond from the outposts by soldiers, from whom the 
old lady’s sweet face crowned with silver hair elicited 
more of gallant service than they would have offered 
had she been young and pretty, Cousin Polly said. 

“So, what with kindness all along the way,” con- 
cluded her narrator, “and Aunt holding out so well, 
our getting here was as easy as rocking in a chair. 
They all say, though, we were not a day too soon, as 
a fight is imminent. Now, Ursula, it’s plain that 
Richard will never get well in air like this, and it’ll 
just kill your Grandmamma; so I mean to see Jack 
Ferguson and the other surgeon, the first thing in the 
morning, and get the whole party of us packed off to 
the country to poor dear Bonnibel.” 

It was a family belief that circumstances yielded to 
Cousin Polly’s will like the coon that came down the 
tree when Captain Scott took aim. Certain it was 
that one obstacle after another disappeared before her, 


230 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


and in an incredibly short time she had accomplished 
the removal of the invalid from town. 

Attended by his three devotees, — five, it should be 
said, to include Saul and Phyllis, — the Colonel was 
comfortably ensconced in a farm-house far from the 
noise of strife, where Bonnibel and her boy were 
already lodged. 

The poor young widow’s greeting of them was hys- 
terically glad. The sight of her in a cheap black 
frock, bought in the village shop and fashioned by 
her own fingers, the change wrought upon her beauty 
by days and nights of weeping, her pathetic clinging 
to the little bundle of cambric she would hardly let 
out of her arms, affected Ursula powerfully. She felt 
that such a loss was the rending of soul from body, 
beside which all else was light. Her first realizing 
sense of the might and meaning of the marriage-bond 
came to her with Bonnibel’s desolation, and sent the 
girl often into seclusion with bitter tears for “a sor- 
row that might be to come, a sorrow she knew not 
what.” 

Bell’s best comforter was little Grandmamma. 
These two women, the one with her feet upon the 
brink of eternity, the other broken on the threshold 
of a happy life, clung together, talking incessantly of 
him who had been their common treasure. Bell’s 
couch, placed across the foot of Mrs. Throckmorton’s 
bed, heard many a midnight lamentation, relieving in 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


231 


spite of her the mourner, who from it would fall into 
deep sleep to arise refreshed. And in the baby, kick- 
ing and cooing away his waking hours between them, 
they never wearied in discovering the traits and linea- 
ments of his sire. 

The country surrounding their new place of refuge 
was one of rolling hills, encircled by summits of melt- 
ing azure, and dominated by the glorious battlements 
of the Blue Ridge Mountains, known as the Peaks of 
Otter. Here, where war’s destroying finger had not 
yet touched to mar it, the landscape breathed of rest 
and peace. Meadows with sheep and cattle, hedge- 
rows rich with bloom, brawling rivers and gushing 
springs, orchards weighted with fruit — little was lack- 
ing to this rural Paradise. 

But to Ursula the days were long and heavy. To 
be back in town, her ear close to the heart-beats of 
the war, was her one desire. Her recreation, when free 
from duty in the farm-house, was to mount an old 
horse, upon an older side-saddle, and explore alone 
the wood-roads and blooming lanes about the neigh- 
borhood. News from the front came to them grudg- 
ingly. They wrested it piecemeal from the slow 
speech of passing stage-drivers. They read it in news- 
papers arriving long after date — and they held their 
breath between each arrival of a post bag. Little 
more than a month since the Colonel had received 
his wound, the flowers scarce withered under Dick’s 


232 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

coffin-lid, and yet the crowding of great events into 
brief space made the weeks seem thrice their length ! 

******* 

“Forward, quick, march!” 

It had come at last, the call upon their reserve on 
the second afternoon of the Seven Days fight. Miles 
felt the fierce longing that had been tugging at his 
heart-strings break its barriers with a leap. 

Hot work had fallen to his share since the signal 
gun of Mechanicsville proclaimed the opening of the 
fray. During the brief battle of the 26th, he had seen 
two thousand Confederates swept to earth like leaves 
before an autumn gale. He had seen a brigade of his 
countrymen push forward into the death-trap at 
Beaver Dam Creek, and there, beneath the murderous 
batteries hid in the wood above, fall, piled one upon 
another in the slender stream that ran red with their 
blood. 

All night he heard the groans and cries of sufferers 
go up to heaven, and saw ambulances filled with men 
in every stage of mutilation, sent back from this cruel 
sacrifice. And although they had driven the enemy 
and won for the army the passage of the Chickahom- 
iny River, the evening fell upon a struggle just begun. 

Not till the next day’s fight was well along had his 
regiment been summoned. It was never in Miles 
Throckmorton to be patient under waiting. Since 
sunrise, when the Confederate line closing over its 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


233 


losses had drawn up stretching for miles along hill, 
valley, wood, and swamp on the far side of the dis- 
puted stream they had paid such a price to cross, he 
had been chafing for this moment. He had gone 
over the contingencies of his probable fall in battle, 
had put away thoughts of home, had said his prayers 
as a brave man should, and felt childishly restless at 
delay. Among that hideous pile of dead left in the 
creek were college-mates and friends of his childhood, 
serving as privates, unhonored and unsung — gone to a 
cruel death for the sake of an idea. To him it was no 
longer an idea; he had felt no such stir within him 
under foreign flags. He knew it was every man’s duty 
who had survived the scene of yesterday, to build 
up for those dead heroes a soldier’s monument, by 
completing what they had begun. 

Since midday the battle had waxed every hour more 
fierce. “Gaines’s Mill,” “Cold Harbor,” and “The 
Silent Battle of the Seven Days’ Fight,” they vari- 
ously called it, afterwards — the last because, through 
some trick of the atmosphere against acoustics, the 
noise of continuous firing from sixty thousand mus- 
kets and one hundred pieces of artillery was unheard 
on the opposite slopes of the river, scarcely a mile way. 

That it was fighting to be proud of, was long after- 
wards attested by the spirited description of the Gen- 
eral commanding the right wing of the Union army : 

“Dashing down the intervening plains, floundering 


234 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


in the swamps, and struggling against the tangled 
brushwood, brigade after brigade seemed almost to 
melt away before the concentrated fire of our artillery 
and infantry ; yet others pressed on, followed by sup- 
ports as dashing and as brave as their predecessors, 
despite their heavy losses and the disheartening effect 
of having to clamber over many of their disabled and 
dead.” * 

Upon these batteries masked in summer foliage the 
Southern troops had dashed themselves in vain, when 
to Miles, waiting in his saddle, the order came to carry 
his regiment where the rest had gone. 

At the moment of setting out a rider galloped down 
out of the battle smoke toward him, and with a smile 
he recognized Chaplain Crabtree mounted on Ortho- 
doxy, his face begrimed, a light in his gray eyes not 
suggesting his peaceful calling. 

“Hallo, Parson.” 

“So we’re off at last, Colonel. I’m glad I caught 
you first.” The chaplain did not see fit to explain that 
he had been engaged in carrying a message from the 
Division General to a distant point, under fire from 
first to last. His present business was to get from his 
late pupil some expression of affectionate remembrance 
that, in an event to be distinctly apprehended, would 
be a solace to his friends. 

* Major-General Fitz John Porter, in “ Battles and Leaders of the 
Civil War.” 


FLOWER BE HUNDRED. 235 

“And you’re after me to shrive me, eh? Well, do it 
quickly, for my time is short.” 

“My dear Miles — my dear boy,” began the old fel- 
low with a strange break in his voice. “I can only 
say God bless you, and pardon all your sins.” 

“Amen!” said Miles. “I’ve been praying on my 
own account to-day. You’ll remember that, sir, if I 
don’t come out of this.” 

“Aye, that will I, thank the Lord,” said Crabtree. 
“But, Miles, lad, have you no message to send home?” 

“Ask Ursula,” the young man answered briefly. 
And at that instant the word to march was given, and 
the splendid regiment broke into double quick. The 
Parson kept along with them. He could not divest 
himself of the sense of responsibility to his benefactor 
* in caring for this youngster who had grown up under 
his eye. And, truth to tell, the old gentleman had no 
fancy for the wrong side of the show. 

From the slope down which they swept in gallant 
style, he watched them, in the teeth of a raking fire, 
cross a ditch impeded by fallen timber, rise out of it, 
and ascend the crest of a hill opposite fringed with 
woods belching smoke and flame. There was the fatal 
palisade beneath which so many souls of heroes had 
that day gone to their last account. There were the 
batteries, which, to take, meant to avenge the Con- 
federate losses, and to break the Union line! 

In a rain of lead and iron ; closing upon every gap 


236 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


made in their ranks around the colors, with firm re- 
solve; treading underfoot the bodies of comrades who 
but a short half-hour before had preceded them, gayly 
cheering; silent, unfaltering, firing not a gun in answer 
to grape, shell, and canister that cut them down by 
platoons — the men in gray pressed on. Not until 
hard upon the enemy did the shattered remnant of 
those who began the assault rid their lungs of the 
famous rebel yell! Then, with bayonets fixed, they 
charged the breastworks. The fury of their onslaught 
was resistless. The Federals, driven from their ambus- 
cade, rushed up the hill, carrying with them their sec- 
ond line of defense. Then began a blinding fire from 
the pursuers, which paid back with interest the debt 
of blood so recently acquired. And so, on and on, 
pushing a foe as stubborn as themselves, the Confeder- 
ates rested not till darkness was upon them and the 
day was theirs. 

Before this came to pass, one of the leaders of that 
imperishable charge had fallen within the second forti- 
fication, upon a field strewn with bodies, over which 
horses were galloping, riderless and maddened by 
bayonet thrusts and minie balls. With the shout of 
victory on his lips, Colonel Miles Throckmorton had 
been struck from his horse by a saber in the hands 
of an officer of Union cavalry sent unavailingly to 
attempt the salvation of the works. Stunned and 
bleeding from the head, Miles fell at arm’s length from 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


237 


the man whom, in their duel with sabers, he had also 
unhorsed and wounded. As his eyes rested upon the 
pallid face of his opponent, he uttered an exclamation 
of distress. 

‘‘Good God! It’s Cunningham!” 

By one of those strange coincidences so often recur- 
ring in our war, this was indeed the young Englishman 
who had saved Miles’s life in the battle of Melazzo. A 
soldier of fortune, he had enlisted with the cause that 
claimed his sympathy, and chance had brought him 
into personal clash with the one, who, in their com- 
radeship two years before, had been to him as a 
brother. 

‘‘Cunningham, old fellow, rouse up — it’s I — Throck- 
morton — God forgive me if I’ve killed him.” 

Dragging himself nearer, Miles found that his friend 
had fainted. Fumbling with weak fingers in the breast 
of his uniform, he managed to get at a flask and mois- 
ten Cunningham’s lips with brandy. 

But for dead and dying, the two were quite alone, 
and in continual peril from the hoofs of frightened 
horses. As Cunningham revived, Miles became aware 
of keen pain and a weakness never felt before. Was 
it death? Perhaps. Well, he had challenged and 
must meet it like a man. He fell back, and as through 
a mist saw what he took to be Dick’s face, then his 
grandfather’s — ‘‘dear old man, he’ll know me now as 
his own.” Then these faded, and Ursula’s alone re- 


238 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


mained — “true Ursula, his mate — no child, but a 
woman to inspire and to be loved.” How had this 
knowledge never come to him before? 

Miles heard the gallop of an approaching horse. 
With the instinctive dread of mutilation he threw his 
arms up with a cry. 

“Miles!” 

■ Surely he knew that voice. He was in the school- 
room at Flower de Hundred, behindhand with a 
task. 

“Coming, sir, presently,” his dazed voice answered 
feebly. 

“Thank God!” cried the Chaplain, dismounting at 
his side. “Are you much hurt, boy?” 

“It’s my head. I can’t tell.” 

Kneeling upon the stained moss, the Parson dis- 
pensed the rude surgery at his command. His chief 
care was to carry Miles off the Hill Difficulty, up 
which, for this end, he had spurred amid whistling 
balls, back where no turn of the tide could trouble 
them. 

“Oh! it’s no use — you’d better give me up. Do 
something, if you love me, for Cunningham — don’t 
you know Cunningham that saved my life in Sicily?— 
Queer, isn’t it, he and I should meet in a mess like 
this ; tell him I don’t bear him any grudge — Ah ! 
that’s right — he’s rousing — I didn’t hurt him much. 
Hallo! What’s that? — troops? — our troops — are they 



“ DRAGGING HIMSELF NEARER, MILES FOUND THAT HIS FRIEND 

HAD FAINTED.” 
















































































































' 



































































































FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


2 39 


coming back — oh! not driven back? Go Parson, leave 
as, don’t stop — Go, I tell you, you’ll only come to 
grief — please, please go.” 

“I’ll be switched if I do, sir!” roared the Parson in 

a rage. 

Miles lost count of time from this point. When he 
recovered it he was under a fly-tent in an apple 
orchard in the Confederate rear, the Parson and some 
badly frightened robins to keep him company. His 
first coherent inquiry, for the welfare of Captain Cun- 
ningham, met with satisfactory response. 

What they had mistaken for a column of Federal 
troops had been prisoners marching to the Confeder- 
ate rear, and to these Cunningham, while trying to 
help the Chaplain to get Miles upon Orthodoxy’s 
back, was added by the officers in charge. His wound 
proving trifling, he was, at the instance of Colonel 
Throckmorton, soon named on an early list for ex- 
change of prisoners of war, and ten days later went to 
the North, via Aiken’s Landing, while Miles, less for- 
tunate, was tossing in delirium at a private house in 
Richmond. 

On the day following the battle, before the Chaplain 
could prevent it, the rumor of Miles’s death in action 
had spread everywhere. The army and the Rich- 
mond newspapers united in extolling his brilliant 
behavior on the field, and in deploring a loss irrep- 
arable to the South. 


240 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Sunday intervening, Mr. Crabtree’s message by tele- 
graph to the Colonel was not received at the nearest 
railway station until Monday morning, and was there 
held over to be forwarded by the hand of a stage- 
driver, leaving that afternoon for the interior. In the 
mean time, Ursula, who had risen early to ride five 
miles to the cross-roads post-office whence their mail 
matter was distributed, secured a newspaper contain- 
ing a report of the engagements of Mechanicsville and 
Gaines’s Mills; and, opening it when again in the sad- 
dle and on her way back to the farm-house, the first 
name that attracted her eye among the killed was that 
of Miles Throckmorton. 

It had always been Ursula’s way to bleed and make 
no moan. She was not conscious under this blinding 
blow of so much as a start or a shiver. It was hardly 
unexpected, what she had just read. For days, she 
had taken the dread of it to bed with her, waked with 
it, eaten, and gone abroad with it. When alone in a 
shady lane, she looked again at the printed list, trying 
to believe she had been under a delusion. There were 
the letters of his name flaming up to sear her brain ! 
Poor child! Few were the people from whom, in 
troubles small or great, she did not resent condolence. 
Now, her one idea was to hide herself — if she could 
have followed out her first agonized impulse it would 
have been to fly anywhere rather than return home 
with this news. And for the first time in her life she 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


241 


thought of herself without reference to those she 
loved. 

Reaching the farm-house, she gave the newspaper 
into the hands of Cousin Polly who came to meet her, 
and pushing brusquely by went into her own room 
and locked the door. What to do there? To pace 
the floor like a tigress robbed, and to cast herself 
across the bed with a bursting heart and eyes still dry 
of tears. Then, in a flash, came the thought of Miles’s 
legacy. Here was a piece of him, intrusted to her 
sole keeping — a link between them made by him. 
With hot hands she broke the seal, and examined the 
contents of the packet. 

The tears flowed as she ended the reading of the 
letters — Philip Throckmorton’s to his father, inclosed 
in a manly and touching statement from Miles of his 
own discovery and voluntary self-sacrifice ; within, was 
the miniature none could mistake to be other than it 
was. 

Ursula started up, every consideration of prudence 
or delay swept away in the whirlwind of her burning 
championship. Gathering the precious relics in her 
hand, she flew down the stairs and into the Colonel’s 
room. All of the others were there, gathered in a sor- 
rowing group around the old man lying on his couch. 
Ursula was conscious that she made but a savage 
entry among these patient Christian folk, bending their 

hearts to accept the Lord’s decree. She tried to curb 
16 


242 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


herself, to lower her voice to the pitch of gentle com- 
miseration, and failed. The one image of Miles dying 
on the battle-field, with none to tell him that the great 
things he had done in his short life were recognized 
and honored, enchained her imagination, melted and 
stirred her with its overwhelming pathos. Of him, 
him only, could she think. When she tried to speak, 
her voice came in hysterical gasps. Then, gathering 
herself in a passionate effort, she laid the miniature 
and letters upon the Colonel’s knee. 

“Look! read!” she cried. “And oh, you will see 
what you have lost !” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Disabled for active service, although fairly restored 
to health, Colonel Richard Throckmorton might have 
felt tempted to turn his sword into a pruning-hook, 
and take up the care of his deserted home, but for the 
exposed situation of the estate. More than one 
stolen glimpse he had had at Flower de Hundred, 
stopping over night and keeping a horse saddled in the 
stable to escape at the first warning of hostile visitors 
by land or water. Known as the property of a rebel 
officer of rank, the place was until the end of the 
war continually subject to raids from the enemy, and 
piece by piece its glories fell away, until a day came 
more memorable in disaster than any that had pre- 
ceded it. One January night in 1864, the Colonel, 
withdrawing the curtain of his window as he had been 
always wont to do for a last glance at lawn and river, 
before retiring, thought he had never seen them love- 
lier. In the clear light of a wintry moon, so bright 
that he might almost have read print under it, the 
magnolias glistened with a silver sheen, the turf was 
washed in silver, and the water glimmered unbroken 
by a sail. No sign was there, in this unearthly radi- 
ance, of the ravages that war had left and daytime 

243 


244 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


would reveal. Soothed by the peaceful spectacle, a 
fresh hope that the dear ones still left to him might 
once again be united in happiness within these walls 
came into his perennially young heart. He went to 
bed under blankets taken by Judy’s fingers from 
Judy’s “chist,” and fell into an old man’s troubled 
sleep, to be aroused at daybreak by a negro creeping 
barefoot to his side. 

“Wake up, Marse Richard,’’ the man said, shaking 
with fear. “De ribber’s jess chock-full o’ Yankee boats, 
an’ yo’ hoss is at de back do’.” 

But before the Colonel had time to do more than 
spring out of bed and lay hold upon his clothes, the 
room was filled with blue-coated soldiers, and he found 
himself a prisoner of war. 

Half-clad and shivering, with head uncovered, his 
gray locks streaming in the keen breeze from the water, 
they hurried him across the frozen lawn to a gunboat 
at the wharf, and into the presence of the officer in 
command. 

From the cuddy to which, under guard, he was con- 
signed, Richard Throckmorton watched all day long 
the sack of his ancient homestead. Under suspicion 
as a depot of Confederate supplies, the outbuildings 
were recklessly put to the torch, and a ring of smoke 
and flame from burning stables, barns, school-house, 
bowling-alley, kitchens, and dairy, the whole, in fact, of 
the little village tributary to a great Virginia dwell- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


245 


mg, encircled and swept perilously near the mansion. 
Soldiers mad with excitement overran the rooms and, 
dragging whatever they could lay hands on out upon 
the lawn, made merry with their spoil. Furniture, 
pictures, mirrors, carpets, books, saddles, fire-irons 
strewed the grass ; and when to these were added the 
unfortunate discovery of a cask of buried whisky, an 
orgy followed in which all semblance of restraint was 
thrown aside. The pet donkey, coming upon the 
scene bestridden by a huge fellow attired in a Colonial 
poke-bonnet and flourishing a lady’s parasol, threw his 
rider over head, and was at once seized and given a 
treble burden beneath whose weight he sank to earth. 
Judy, appearing to make heroic protest, was driven 
back to her cabin with jeering threats, and the other 
negroes faithful to their master, who had remained 
upon the place, were glad to cower out of sight, if not 
to curry favor by providing food to the revelers. 

And so the day wore on till evening closed the 
saturnalia, while Colonel Throckmorton, maimed, de- 
spoiled, and helpless, saw with a heart swelling with 
gratitude that the surrounding fire had burnt out, 
leaving the empty shell of his dwelling still standing. 
At night, the boat steamed back to Fortress Mun- 
roe, where, without interrogatory and in company 
with two marauding negroes of the fleet, the Colonel 
was consigned to a dungeon to await the pleasure of 
his captors. 


246 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


This episode was happily brief. The prisoner, 
shortly thereafter exchanged, returned to Richmond, 
confronting the situation with quiet dignity. He 
bore this blow of fate as he had borne the others. 
Without a word of violence for his enemies, he 
patiently resumed the frayed and broken threads 
of everyday existence. 

“I sometimes think, Richard,” quoth Cousin Polly, 
taking the sole of an old shoe out of soak before refit- 
ting it to the cloth upper, ingeniously contrived from 
the tails of a moth-eaten coat discarded by the Colo- 
nel, “that I was thrown away among people of my 
own estate in life. Look at this gaiter I’ve already 
made. As a shoemaker I could have coined gold for 
us in these blockaded days.” 

“If it is not in current specie you coin it all the 
same, my dear Polly,” said the Colonel, laying down 
his saffron-tinted “Examiner.” “But where, pray, is 
my Ursula?” 

“She went off after office hours for a walk some- 
where,” vaguely answered Miss Polly, who had her 
own reason for keeping dark on the subject. “No 
doubt she will be in soon.” 

“Ah, well ! As our circle narrows ,1 grow more rest- 
less when one is out of sight.” 

“We are like those regiments that started out into 
the war with the full complement of men, and with 
colors flying,” Miss Polly said, “and have come down 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 247 

to a ragged remnant. There is one, though, that I 
cannot wish were back.” 

“No, poor little mother! She was too fine and frail 
for a life of ups and downs. As Miles truly says, she 
was a flower that would not bear transplanting.” 

“She is blooming in the garden of the Lord, ” added 
Miss Polly, a tear dropping upon her homely work. 
“And if ever man died of a broken heart it was Saul 
when his ‘Ole Miss’ was taken. He was like a dog 
that strayed out to die upon his master’s grave. But, 
bless me! Here I am forgetting that it’s supper time, 
though precious little I’ve got for you and Ursula, I’m 
free to say.” 

Jumping up, she went bustling about her simple 
preparations. Their meal at midday, dinner, so-called, 
having consisted of rashers of fat bacon and hot “corn- 
pone,” the supper was destined to set forth hard-tack 
soaked in boiling water, and coffee made of parched 
beans and served without milk or sugar. Yes, the 
Confederate wolf was at the door. It was now late in 
the year which to the Colonel had been heralded in 
by the sacking and destruction of his home ; and the 
little family were glad to find refuge in a crowded 
lodging-house in town. Their actual possessions in 
the matter of accommodation were scant — a sitting- 
room in the basement, where a lounge sufficed for the 
Colonel to sleep upon, and a closet near by held his 
equipage of the toilet — while, up under the eaves, Miss 


248 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Polly and Ursula perched in a pigeon-box where only 
one inmate could move about at a time. 

Every floor of the domicile that sheltered the family 
from Flower de Hundred was inhabited by refugees 
and Department clerks — driven to various expedients 
to secure food and the ordinary comforts of exis- 
tence. Around Ursula and Polly congregated chiefly 
young women employed in the different bureaux of 
Government, and the walls echoed with merry twitter- 
ings over the make-shifts of their lot. In the story 
below, an infirm man and his wife, two children, and 
a paralytic mother whose bed was concealed behind a 
screen fashioned from quilts and clothes-pins, occupied 
a room in common. During an illness of the bread- 
winner of this little family of gentlefolks, they were 
supported by the self-sacrificing efforts of two friends, 
girls employed in the Confederate treasury, who 
pledged the recipients of their bounty to tell no one 
whence it came. 

Thanks to an old friend of Colonel Throckmorton, 
a householder in the town, the rooms he had been 
glad to secure with scantiest furniture wore an air 
of comfort then uncommon, and even of what was 
almost elegance as compared with the surroundings of 
others. Chairs, tables, books, and a student’s lamp, 
were lent until the owner should need them. Every- 
body was borrowing household necessaries. The 
family of a member of the Cabinet, unable to secure 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 249 

by purchase a dining-table, and having had the use of 
one from an acquaintance, was called on to surrender 
it at a moment when spread for the rare occasion of a 
dinner to invited guests. A lady had borrowed salt- 
cellars, but returned them on demand to the owner 
who was driven to sell them to buy bread, and sup- 
plied their place with “cocked-hats/' made of old invi- 
tations to a ball, issued when paper was still white. 
Blankets, given up in an emergency, were replaced by 
sheets lined with newspapers. 

But the Colonel’s furniture was not of this migra- 
tory class. All he would take was for his use, “till 
you choose to get rid of it,” said the friend who fur- 
nished it. And, by adding here and there some pretty 
touch, pots of plants on the window sill to conceal a 
dreary outlook, curtains, cushions, table covers, those 
magicians Polly and Ursula bestowed on their tiny 
kingdom the pleasant air of home. 

Seasons had passed since the Battle Summer set its 
indelible imprint upon their family. Many another 
conflict had left its heart-aches to the land. Every 
step forward of the invading army had been contested 
till their tracks were dyed in blood, the bones of com- 
batants were bleaching upon a hundred fields, and the 
war was drawing to its inevitable close. In Virginia, 
of the troops that upon the first call to arms had been 
rallied from the fine flower of Southern society, there 
remained the gaunt, ragged, and barefooted veterans 


250 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


with whom Lee stood between the enemy and Rich- 
mond — and starvation stared them in the face. 

At the hospitals, the cry was no longer for delicacies 
but for sustenance. The coarsest bread was now sold 
sparingly ; tea, coffee, and sugar were almost unattain- 
able ; milk and eggs were, like brandy, dispensed only 
in the extremity of need. 

In the army, rations had been cut down to meager 
bits of bacon, handfuls of meal, dried peas or parched 
corn, and at times either of these was lacking until 
some happy chance should supply the commissariat 
anew. Whilst the summer lasted, all that was edible 
in vegetation was stripped to supply the cravings of 
the troops. As the winter closed in, officers and men 
alike dreamed dreams of abundance, to awake with 
pangs of hunger. To these facts, familiar to those 
who surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, may be ap- 
pended a pregnant paragraph from the original letter 
written by General Lee to the Secretary of War at 
Richmond, dated, “Hd Quarters C. S. Armies, 9th 
March, 1865,” and lying now before me as I write: 

“Unless the men and animals can be subsisted, the 
army cannot be kept together, and our present lines 
must be abandoned. Nor can it be moved to any 
other position where it can operate to advantage with- 
out provisions to enable it to move in a body. The 
difficulties attending the payment and clothing of the 
troops, though great, are not so pressing, and would 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


251 


be relieved in a measure by military success. The 
same is true of the ordnance supplies. And I there- 
fore confine my remarks chiefly to those wants which 
must be met now, in order to maintain a force ade- 
quate to justify a reasonable hope of such success.” 

Shut up in Richmond, the goal of Northern hopes, 
more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, in addi- 
tion to the thirty thousand the town had been built to 
contain, shared with the army the hardships of the 
time. The supplies to be had were controlled by 
speculators who sold at prices thought enormous, 
even by people used to Confederate currency. The 
markets, during that winter, were but a beggarly 
array of empty benches. From the ravaged and 
exhausted country within practicable reach, little 
could be got or expected, and the same difficulties 
of transportation that in a few months were to make 
it impossible to subsist the army, prevented drafts 
upon remoter regions. The stress thus felt was al- 
most universal. It was only those who had anything 
to sell who could put money in their purse, and they 
were few and marked. Men like Richard Throckmor- 
ton, who, in their early buoyancy of faith in the result 
of the war, had invested their available means in Con- 
federate Bonds, as a loan to the government, found 
themselves in actual need of money. The inflation of 
the currency, until more than fifty dollars, that winter, 
were required to represent the value of one to-day, 


252 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


lent a ghastly joviality to the affairs of traffic. People 
told their expenses, laughed at the prices asked, jested 
over their full purses and the minute equivalents in 
necessaries, detailed their straits and contrivances, and, 
throughout, never lost confidence that the South would 
succeed and that good times would come again ! 

After all, poverty and hunger weigh far more lightly 
when shared by a community bent on putting the 
bright face upon affairs, than when compared with 
well-fed solvency crowding to a banquet the poor and 
famished may not taste. And there was something 
original, almost piquant, in those meetings together of 
men and women, who had been affluent, at banquets 
served upon silver, porcelain, and cut glass, where the 
food offered was meager and only such as could be 
found in the humblest cabin of the negro prior to the 
war! Under such conditions, society quickly rids it- 
self of the desire for display, the pretenses, the petty 
ambitions which go to the bottom in such a ferment of 
humanity. 

While Miss Polly was in the act of immersing her 
hard tack under the spout of a persistently cheerful 
kettle, Ursula came in from the early dusk of the win- 
ter’s afternoon, her eyes sparkling, a bright tinge upon 
her cheek. 

“Oh, am I too late to lay the cloth?” she cried. 
“You know, Cousin Polly, it’s the only indulgence pos- 
sible to my aesthetic sense, at meal time, to make the 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


253 


table look pretty. Blessed be you for remembering to 
bring away from home a good supply of damask and 
small silverware ! And I never take one of Mr. Bar- 
clay’s Devonport dishes off the cupboard shelf, that I 
don’t want to kiss the nice old thing for lending them 
to us.” 

"Don’t waste your kisses upon Barclay,” said the 
Colonel, to whom the strong young creature brought 
new life with the outer air that lingered in her gar- 
ments. 

Ursula laughed, and stooping over his chair be- 
stowed on his forehead a fervent caress. He had been 
trying to read, but was sadly interrupted by a crack in 
one of his eyeglasses, which he now took off and laid 
aside with a sigh over their incompetency. 

"Oh, I can’t wait!” cried the girl. "I never could 
wait. I’m just bursting with anxiety to see if these 
will suit your eyes.” 

And kneeling down by him, she fitted upon his nose 
a brand-new pair of gold-bowed spectacles. 

"Ursula!” exclaimed the Colonel. 

"Scold as you may, Cousin Richard, they’re bought 
and paid for, honestly — not out of the house-money, 
or the hospital fund, as Cousin Polly ’ll bear me wit- 
ness.” 

"Yes, Richard, they are Ursula’s own present, and if 
they give you half the pleasure they’ve given her to 
plot for them, she’ll be amply satisfied.” 


2 54 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“They suit me to a T,” said the Colonel, beaming 
with satisfaction. “And now I can read without both- 
ering my arm perpetually to take off or put on the 
others. But I’m completely mystified. How did my 
Ursula become a capitalist? Many a time I’ve walked 
past the shop wishing I could afford this luxury. 
Last week, only, Dawson told me he was asking five 
hundred dollars a pair for such as these, for I was 
weak enough to go in one day and try them on.” 

“Of course you were, and of course I tracked you, 
you dear old ostrich,” exclaimed the girl gleefully. 
“Why you haven’t seen that for two months past 
Cousin Polly and I have thought of nothing else — !” 

“But that doesn’t answer my question? Where did 
you get five hundred dollars to throw away on me?” 

“In the first place I indited a poem — a noble 
effort — for which an editor gave me seventy-five. 
That check demoralized me. I felt equal to any ex- 
travagance. Then I wrote a story, then more verses — 
and after that — the deluge — and no more questions 
answered !” 

Not until long afterwards did the Colonel find that, 
to amass the sum desired, she had done extra work at 
the Bureau, and, still lacking a small amount, had that 
day recklessly carried her one muff and boa to the 
Ladies’ Exchange and disposed of them for the balance 
required. To Ursula, the knowledge that he had been 
wistfully wanting and steadily denying himself this 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


2 55 


necessary, was fraught with such pathos that to 
bestow it on him filled her with bubbling pleasure. 
Coming home with her prize, she had danced through 
the streets ! 

And as blessings, like misfortunes, are apt to come 
in pairs, when they were gathering around the table to 
their frugal meal, a tap at the door disclosed one of 
the bevy of Department girls who occupied the rooms 
on the third floor. 

“Oh, please, Miss Throckmorton!” she said excit- 
edly, “I have had a box from the country, and we are 
laying out such a spread ! And if you’ll not refuse to 
take three sausages and a glass of apple jelly, it would 
be doing me a favor — you’ve been so kind to us, you 
know, and there’s so little I can do.” 

Pressing her gifts into Ursula’s hands where she 
stood at the open door, the girl, flushed with pleasure, 
ran away. 

“The ravens provide!” exclaimed Miss Polly, “not 
to say that our poor, dear, generous Betty Millson is 
that kind of a bird — I wont stop, Richard, to send 
these sausages out to the cook. If you don’t mind, 
I'll just toast them here.” 

Betsey, the negro woman who did cleaning and 
“serious” cooking for the lodgers, inhabited the 
kitchen in the yard ; but, save for bread-making, her 
culinary service had, of late, been light. Miss Polly, 
secretly afraid that even a short margin of time would 


25<5 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


suffice for the Colonel to advance his usual proposi- 
tion to reserve this superfluous dainty for the hospi- 
tals, made all haste to pop her sausages upon the 
toasting-fork ! 

In the act of lifting his first welcome mouthful to 
his lips, the good man paused. He did not speak, 
but they saw him wince. He was thinking of a 
passage in the last letter Miles had written from 
the front : 

“To-day one of my staff officers took teamsters and 
mules and scoured the country, coming back with some 
loads of unshucked corn. The men fell upon it like 
wild animals. In a driving snow-storm they shelled 
the corn with numb fingers and giving the husks to 
the horses parched the hard grains and ate them rav- 
enously. Our own mess was supplied with a pot of 
cow-pea soup and a morsel of corn bread for each 
officer. We slept last night under frozen blankets, 
most of us, upon the ground. And yet my fellows, 
when they can manage to only half-fill their stomachs, 
are as fit as fiddles and ready to keep it up till Dooms- 
day. If — if — what can an if accomplish — but oh, if I 
could only shoe them properly, and give them one 
square meal a day !” 

After supper, when the Colonel, according to his 
wont on fine nights, had strolled around to one of the 
houses where he was an honored guest, sometimes to 
indulge in a rubber of whist and more often to talk 
over the increasing gravity of the military situation, 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 257 

the ladies tidied their room, and sat down to their 
work. 

“And now, my dear child,” said the brisk disposer 
of family affairs, “I should be really glad for you to 
put aside your mourning and go to this party at the 
Annandale’s.” 

“It’s all very well, Cousin P,” said Ursula resign- 
edly. “I don’t deny that I’d like a peep at some of 
the fun. But I’m laboring under the same embarrass- 
ment that Mr. Swiveller felt when he was debarred 
from going into the street by the sale of all his 
clothes — ‘even an umbrella would be something.’ ” 

“I know very well, you darling, that the proceeds of 
your wardrobe in colors bought mourning for us both. 
How I wish, now, I had made you keep that sweet 
sprigged muslin !” 

“Never mind the sprigged muslin,” began Ursula, 
but was interrupted. 

Mrs. Tabby Hazleton, carrying a bundle under her 
arm, came panting in. 

“Howdye, girls — I’m in luck to find you both — but 
then, somehow, it seems to me, I always am in luck. 
Tom’s having to give up the service through that 
fever he got in the Chickahominy — though it left him 
the color of a pumpkin and a little hard to manage — 
still, he’s at home safe; and if I give him enough 
newspapers — you know how odd he always was about 
Vashti — well, when she made her mind up to go 
17 


258 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


North and be a freedwoman I thought Tom would 
never get along — if you’ll believe me, he says, now, 
he’d as lief the war would hold on twenty years, if 
’twould keep Vashti at the North — oh, my dear, he 
don’t mean it, though — the sights we see — even 
among the lodgers — who’d have ever thought I’d 
come to taking rent for rooms of mine — those poor 
exiled homesick things, huddled together, starving 
almost — the only thing I minded about having them , 
is that it isn’t you all — but I seemed to have got them 
settled down on me, from the first, and you can’t ask 
people to go out, even if it is your dearest friends you 
want in place of them — couldn’t spare a servant this 
evenin’, and so brought this around myself. First, a 
mutton-bone for Betsey to make some broth to-mor- 
row for the Colonel — my dear, I’d hoped to bring 
some meat but my boarders have such appetites and 
this is the first mutton we’ve had, in I don’t know 
when — there’s enough to make a right good mess of 
broth — and here’s a half a pound of rice — ” 

“Tabby Hazleton !” said Miss Polly severely. 

“What are you talkin’ ’bout, Polly Lightfoot? 
What’s a mutton bone?” 

“Didn’t you solemnly promise you’d not take an- 
other morsel off your table to put on ours?” 

“Polly, I declare to gracious we got up from din- 
ner feeling as if we’d eaten too much — please, please, 
don’t prevent me — why, when Tom and I sit and 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 259 

talk about the Colonel till our hearts are like to 
burst — !” 

The faithful soul fell to crying, and the unaccus- 
tomed sight of tears coursing upon her ruddy cheeks 
was too much for Miss Polly to resist. Crossing over, 
she not only took the offerings from Tabby’s hand, 
but bestowed a hug upon their bearer. Peace being 
restored, Tabby again began to chirrup. 

‘‘Look here, Ursula, child, I hear the Colonel 
wants you to go to some of these merrymakings — 
‘Starvation Parties,’ don’t they call ’em — the young 
folks are getting up. Well, of course, I knew you’d 
nothing but black things, and, thinks I to myself, 
what will the darling wear? Then I remembered the 
changeable silk I wore to the Christmas Ball at Flower 
de Hundred — it’s never been out of the linen pillow- 
case, since then — fashions alter, of course, and you’re 
so much taller; but, with gores coming in, and Polly’s 
head for managin’ — the only thing is, blue is not your 
color nor purple either, with your skin — maybe old 
Judith can get something for it at the Exchange — 
don’t open it till I’m — can’t bear to think of those 
happy, happy — four dollars a yard in Baltimore before 
the scissors were stuck — speaking of Judith, when the 
Lord makes up his jewels that old woman will be 
there — I’ve found out ’twas she that paid for Peyton’s 
funeral, while poor Helen was lying ill — ” 

“Just like Judith. When she first got the place as 


260 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


manager of the Exchange, she wanted the Colonel to 
take her earnings; and when he refused outright, and 
Helen did too, the faithful creature fell to hoarding 
‘against a rainy day.’ Our people have been fidelity 
itself. Phyllis, who’s hired out as a lady’s maid at the 
Annandales, had rather have starved with us than 
leave us. Isaac is a porter in the Quartermaster’s 
Department, you know; but when his work’s done, he 
never fails to come in of an evening to brush the Colo- 
nel’s clothes and clean his shoes. I found the old 
fellow almost crying, last night, over a big patch in 
one of Richard’s boots. Jock sticks to Miles like a 
leech, and when our darling boy complained of an 
empty pocket, recently, offered, in good earnest, to let 
himself be sold to set Miles up in cash. Miles told 
Jock he’d knock him down if he opened his mouth 
again, and that was an end of it.” 

“Did you hear the story of Major Carter’s Jim,” 
asked Ursula. “He, too, under the stress of the 
times, begged to be sold ‘for a good big price, for I’se 
a fuss class waitah, sah.’ ‘No, Jim, old boy, there’s no 
price big enough to buy you,’ said his master, ‘when 
you leave me you go free.’ ‘Laws, Marse Gawge, 
who’s talkin’ bout leavin’ you?’ answered Jim, with a 
twinkle in his eye. ‘All you’se got to do’s to put me 
in your pocket, and git along out o’ Richmon’ to de 
camp. Ef I turns up wid de army a few days arter, 
you se not sponsible.’ ” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


261 


“Well, well, well, mustn’t stay chattin’ here,” said 
Tabby, arising to depart. “But I'll declare to gra- 
cious, girls, I was forgettin’ to tell you IVe had a let- 
ter from Cousin Maria Crayshaw, of Rose Hill — 
always said ’twas foolishness to talk about Miles 
courting one of those Crayshaw girls, when ’twas only 
because they are such friends with Bell — what do you 
think, Sally Crayshaw’s made Bell promise to go for a 
visit to Rose Hill, and Miles’s headquarters are not a 
mile away !” 

“Tabby Hazleton, you’re a gossip,” said Miss Light- 
foot, with a sniff. 

“Oh, come now, Polly, when a widow’s young and 
pretty, and her first love is still — tongues will wag, 
and everybody says it’s bound to be a match.” 

“Miles will have all he can do,” returned Miss Polly, 
quite awfully for her, “to take care of his grand- 
father and to bring up the ruins of the place. It will 
be a long time before he can think of marrying any 
one. And I must say it’s hardly decent to talk so, 
when Bell hasn’t left off wearing crape.” 

“Oh, crape don’t hinder!” said the incorrigible 
Tabby, “especially in war-times, when husbands are 
husbands — don’t you know — and surely when she’s so 
young and unprotected, living on from day to day with 
those cousins who can only give her a roof to cover 
her — and Miles, the guardian of the boy, and all — and 
naturally wanting to make amends to him — I do hope, 


262 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


Polly Lightfoot, if such a thing’s to be, you’re not 
going to hump your back up — I just know the Colonel 
would take it the right way — and Ursula, who is so 
fond of Bell — Ursula, child, I don’t like to see you 
poking a coal fire — nothing destroys the skin like 
Richmond coal — my! my! what will Tom say to me 
leaving him so long?” 

“I never came nearer flying into a rage in all my 
life,” declared Miss Polly, when they were left alone. 
“Of course, Ursula , you know this thing’s impossible?” 

“Impossible to make Mrs. Tabby’s left-off finery 
adjust itself to me?” said Ursula, who was unpinning 
Tabby’s bundle. “Cousin Polly, she’s the kindest soul 
alive. Look at this lovely old Mechlin lace she has 
put in with the silk.” 

“Ursula, sometimes I think you care for nothing 
but the Colonel and myself.” 

“Oh, but I do !” cried the girl gayly. “I adore old 
Mechlin lace.” 

Ursula’s mornings, spent in writing and rewriting 
her signature upon endless series of slips of paper, 
bearing the superscription of the Register of the Con- 
federate Treasury, were not intellectually invigorating. 
But the pittance of salary thus earned was important, 
and while on duty she was surrounded by women, 
young and old, most of them called by historic names 
of England and Virginia, many of them sprung from 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 263 

the statesmen who had cradled the Constitution of 
the United States, all having left homes of comfort 
and luxury to be near their men-folk in the struggle 
that had wrought such havoc upon their fortunes. 
The atmosphere was congenial, elastic, even gay. The, 
same element of fearless vivacity, born of Southern soil, 
which in all times has been difficult for the Northern 
mind to accept as anything more than frivolity — and 
which, among the grandes dames awaiting death by 
guillotine in the French Conciergerie, sparkled like fire- 
flies in the dark — infused their industry. Here and 
there, you would see a grave, silent worker, clad in 
black, still under the shadow of crushing bereavement. 
Her, the others respected, spared, lavished little tender 
words and acts upon. Some, known to be so poor that 
they must perforce go without luncheon in order to 
feed mouths waiting for them at home, were surprised 
by benefactions achieved through blessed artifice. 
During the hours of official service all sat alert and busi- 
ness-like, guidingtheir rapid pens; but at the moment 
of relaxation, such a loosening of the flood-gates of 
speech — such trills of laughter, such gesticulations by 
fair hands ; such eye-beams and blushes over General 
This and Private That; such charges and counter- 
charges, denials, rebuttals ; such fluttering gossip over 
weddings, where the bride, happy in possessing a new 
homespun frock, gave herself, without dowry, to a 
groom owning but the horse he rode and the sword he 


264 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


carried, as, kissing his new-made wife, he spurred away 
again into battle ! 

On the day following Tabby’s little skirmish with 
Cousin Polly, there was in one of the dove-cotes of 
the Treasury Department much discussion. The 
whole of luncheon-time was taken up with a ball, to be 
held at the house of a new member of the “Starvation 
Club,” new also in the sense of Richmond conserva- 
tism, and of a family that might be depended upon to 
introduce at supper some variation of the menu, here- 
tofore consisting of water of the James with abundant 
attic salt. Many, denouncing in advance as presum- 
tuous the suggested innovation of “refreshments,” se- 
cretly determined to be present. It was even hinted by 
some daring spirit that the host might be intending to 
test the temper of the company with a bowl of claret- 
punch, but this was dismissed as a visionary’s dream. 

“One thing is certain, girls,” declared one of the 
acknowledged belles ; “we may go without eating, but 
the exigencies of society require that something shall 
be worn ! Until yesterday, I was in despair for a party 
dress, and suddenly my good spirit gave me a new idea. 
Every rag I own has been so turned and twisted, one 
old thing trimmed with another, that nothing original 
remains.” 

“Except original sin!” quoted Ursula. 

“No interruptions, please. When you see what IVe 
evolved — and provided no one comes too near, I’m 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 265 

pretty sure of my effect— you will all be wild to copy ! 
It’s a frock of mosquito netting looped over pink cam- 
bric, with paper roses! The inspiration came to me 
during the sermon last Sunday, I’m sorry to say, and 
soon after hearing that divine General Throckmorton 
is to be at this ball." 

"He is such a beauty!" exclaimed another girl. 
"But, Ursula, if you tell him I said so, I’ll get even 
with you, never fear." 

"He has such a don’t-care-for-anybody air, it’s quite 
enchanting," cooed a third. 

"Oh, my dear girls, it’s breath wasted for any of us 
to talk about Miles Throckmorton !’’ said Gracie Gray. 
"Of course Ursula wont tell, but all the world 
knows he’s wild about Mrs. Dick. Captain Carter, 
who came to town on furlough yesterday, told me 
he’d seen them riding together near the General’s 
headquarters — she’s on a visit to Rose Hill. Bell 
Throckmorton is prettier than ever in her hat and 
habit, Carter says, and all the officers are pulling caps 
for her. I don’t know how you others find it, — " here 
a melancholy shake of a very pretty head, — "but my 
experience shows that these old cousinly attachments 
are the worst to contend against — ’’ another shake and 
sigh; "I know it, for I’ve tried." 

In the laugh that followed, Ursula escaped. Turn- 
ing her steps that afternoon in the direction of the 
"Ladies’ Exchange," she assured herself that there, at 


266 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


least, she would be free of the mocking specter that 
so persistently dogged her path. , 

With Miles’s recovery from the long and danger- 
ous illness following his wound, and after the formal 
recognition by his grandfather of the young man’s 
rights as heir of the estate, a new condition of things 
had arisen between the comrades of lang syne. For 
reasons known only to herself the girl withdrew into 
a shell of maidenly reserve, puzzling, annoying, and 
finally exasperating the none-too-patient Miles, until 
he had vowed not to belittle himself before such a 
creature of whims again. With returning health, and 
the lifting of the weight he had so long borne alone, 
winning a soldier’s guerdons with every onward step, 
leading a life so crowded with stirring incident, he was 
carried by the rush of circumstance continually away 
from her. Only Cousin Polly guessed — and she could 
but speculate in silence — what this meant to Ursula! 

No haunts more eloquent of war’s pervading pres- 
ence were to be found throughout the South than 
those marts instituted in many towns for the sale or 
barter of the wearing apparel of needy gentlefolks. 
That in charge of which old Judith of Werowocomico 
had been placed by some benevolent ladies shrank 
away into a quiet side street, and concealed its mossy 
roof under the boughs of two great magnolias. About 
its chief room, long, low-studded, and scrupulously 
neat, there hung a perpetual odor of camphor, sandal- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


267 


wood, attar-of-roses, and tonquin-beans, as if the cup- 
board-shelves of a legion of maiden aunts had been 
emptied and aired within its precincts. Here old 
Judith would unfold and display to trusted customers 
an extraordinary variety of woman’s gear and orna- 
ments, State robes of satin, put by after having 
made their curtsey to Queen Victoria, Empress Euge- 
nie, or the ladies of the White House ; silks and tarla- 
tans that had swept the ball-room floors of Newport, 
Saratoga, and the White Sulphur Springs; gauzy 
muslins of New Orleans, fashioned by the skilled fin- 
gers of Olympe; wedding-gowns taken from silver 
paper and sent away from home with tear-drops in 
their folds. Flounces there were of Point d’Alengon, 
like frost-work upon the window; yards of Honiton, 
Mechlin, Valenciennes, and Brussels lace; wraps of 
camel’s hair; “marrowy shawls of China crepe, like 
wrinkled skins on scalded milk,” and others of those 
Oriental webs that are tinted like pigeons’ blood 
rubies. Then Judith’s tawny hand would unlock the 
drawers of a brass-bound cabinet, and, untying knots 
of faded silk, touching the springs of tarnished jewel- 
cases, would bring to light fans, parasols, trinkets, — 
garnets or amethysts set in seed-pearl were most often 
seen, and discs of turquoise, framed in yellow gold — 
here and there an old miniature even, courting its 
equivalent in clothes or dollars. 

In the silence of the embalmed atmosphere, in the 


268 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


green light streaming through small panes of glass, a 
fitting priestess of this shrine of long ago was the 
ancient mulatto, standing always in the presence of 
her guests, wearing the turban and apron, dropping 
the old-time reverence, of her class — her mild eyes full 
of sympathy in the exigencies her visitors revealed — 
keeping secrets to the death — honest in rendering 
account to the smallest fraction of the bargain’s 
worth. 

Cousin Polly had lost no time in despatching to 
Judith’s mart the relic given by Mrs. Hazleton, and 
the old woman greeted Ursula with a smile curbing 
welcome news. Already a customer had presented 
herself, a maiden lady with a taste for high colors, 
offering in exchange for Tabby’s flamboyant robe a 
roll of India muslin that had been lying by since the 
spinster’s grandmother had danced at the Richmond 
Assemblies. With a keen appreciation of its artistic 
value, Judith drew through her fingers the lovely filmy 
stuff with its traceries of white embroidery. As the 
mulatto descanted upon how the gown might be 
made, Ursula felt her girl’s heart beat with unwonted 
excitement. 

“Law’s sake, Miss Nutty, I aint a sayin’ it to flatter, 
but you’se grown up into a real beauty, and wid your 
lace in a soft full ruffle around de low neck, and de 
same thing in de arms, you wont need a speck o’ trim- 
min’, take my word. I just wan’ my young lady to 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 269 

show folks what ole Flower de Hunderd kin turn out. 
Time was when all de plantation thought there worn’t 
no beauty to hold a candle to Miss Bonnibel, but if 
they’d see Miss Nutty now — And so Marse Miles is 
coming to visit Marse Richard. Bless de Lawd, that 
marcy’s spared to the Colonel. Miss Nutty — fore you 
go — it aint takin’ liberty from me to you — Is it true 
what I heard de ladies in here a-yistidday, say bout 
Marse Miles gwine to marry Miss Bonnibel — it aint 
true , is it, chile?” 

Ursula’s exhilaration took immediate leave of her. 
“How can I answer, Mammy,” she said, trying to 
speak lightly, though her words seemed framed in 
lead. “Don’t you know a man’s family are the last to 
hear the truth about such matters.” 

“It aint fitten for me to pass opinions,” went on the 
old woman. “But, chile, when I think what a little 
while it is since him she loved was cut off in his 
youth’s flower, — and besides, Miss Nutty, honey — 
Miss Helen and me’s so often talked of it together — 
It always seemed as if — ” 

Mammy faltered and stopped short; and, Ursula’s 
silence inviting no further discussion of the theme, she 
curtsied as her customer said good-by. 

“Am I never to cease to feel the goad of it?” the 
girl asked herself, as she hastened home. 

No heroine, however rent by sentimental woe, can 
fail to derive consolation from the knowledge of a 


270 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


moment of best looks. Ursula, equipped for the 
“Starvation Ball,” stood gazing at herself in the little 
bed-room mirror held aslant by Cousin Polly to afford 
a fuller view, and attended by five Department girls 
bristling with pins, compliments, and suggestions. 
During the progress of the frock (made at home, we 
may be sure), these generous creatures had flashed in 
and out of her tiny cold room, begging to be allowed 
to hem, to pipe, to cord, to gather; she had had much 
ado to reject their offers of necklets, ear-rings, ban- 
doline, and what not; and they now stood, arms 
wreathed around each others’ waists, cheeks flushed in 
sympathetic triumph, in a living, palpitating chain, to 
hail her Queen of Beauty. 

To her New Orleans-born mother, Ursula owed the 
mat tint of a complexion like the petal of a cape jas- 
mine that by candle light gleams with such dazzling 
whiteness. “Pale comme un beau soir d’automne,” 
Miles had said of her once, what time that young 
gentleman allowed himself to drop into rare compli- 
ment. Her soft dusky hair shaded a low brow and 
harmonized with the hazel eyes that could look 
pathetic as a wounded fawn’s, then gleam with sud- 
den sparkles when a bright thought flashed its way 
across her brain. She was tall, erect, moved easily, 
and — surpassing charm in woman — carried her head 
grandly upon her shoulders — entering a room with an 
»vir of natural supremacy that oftentimes sent into 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


271 


eclipse some piece of pink and white prettiness, till 
then the belle in general estimation. 

Now, in her clinging draperies of misty white, the 
short waist zoned with white, she suggested the swan- 
necked beauties of Napoleon’s court at the period 
when Josephine, weary of heavier stuffs, ransacked the 
Indies for webs of gauze and made muslin h la mode . 
Kissed and caressed by all of the girls in turn until 
threatened with the death of a fly in honey, she 
gathered up her train and running down the stairs to 
display herself to the Colonel, threw open with a 
flourish the door of the sitting-room. 

“Enter Madame la Duchesse,’’ she cried gayly, 
sweeping in splendid style across the threshold and 
halting with a blush. 

For, beside his grandfather’s chair, drawing the dear 
old man’s single arm around his neck, knelt a stalwart 
soldier. Miles, who, in obedience to the Colonel’s 
suggestion, had delayed after arriving in town long 
enough to make his toilet for the ball, was not pre- 
pared for Ursula’s magnificence. Both men rose up 
to do her homage, Miles vowing inwardly that the 
sight was well worth coming from afar to look upon. 

“No one told me you had come,” she said, giving 
Miles her hand. 

“Why, Cousin Polly knew,” replied the blundering 
soldier. “By Jove, Ursula, you are perfectly stun- 
ning — isn’t she, grandfather?” 


272 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


But the old gentleman had disappeared into his 
dressing-room — returning whence he displayed a case 
of worn blue velvet. 

“I had meant this for you, Ursula — you will remem- 
ber, Miles, it is mentioned in my will. It was my gift 
to my wife upon our wedding-day. I see now how 
much wiser it is to let it adorn your youth, than to 
put off the fulfilling of its mission.” 

Touching the spring of the case, Ursula saw for the 
first time the exquisite string of pearls of which she 
had often heard. 

“It would have been my pleasure to clasp them 
around your neck, my dear,” the Colonel went on gal- 
lantly. “But, seeing that I’m disabled, perhaps Miles 
will do it for me.” 

Ursula gave one quick imploring glance around her 
for Cousin Polly, who was nowhere to be seen. Then 
holding herself very straight, and bending toward 
Miles with much the air of a sovereign enthroned, she 
allowed him to perform the service thus enjoined. 

This dignity affronted Miles. Why could she not 
have submitted to it as a natural thing? He had half 
a mind to back out, in his turn. But resolutely, as if 
marching upon a battery, he took the chain and 
snapped it around her slim and stately throat. A 
“drake’s tail” curl, escaping from the hair beneath her 
knot, became entangled in the clasp. Ursula ex- 
claimed impatiently and stamped her foot. Trying to 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


273 


loosen the tiny curl, it entwined his finger. Then the 
big soldier drawing away brusquely begged her par- 
don, and left the affair for Cousin Polly, who, bustling 
in with wraps, put an end to the situation by telling 
them it was time to go and turning both young 
people out of doors. 

Ursula wondered what had transformed him into ( 
such a lamb of meekness, as, walking to their party, 
after the Southern fashion — (what astonishment, it will 
be remembered, was the portion of a French noble- 
man enlisted under the Confederate banner, when 
assigned to escort a young lady to a dance, alone 
and on foot through the streets of Richmond! what 
eulogy, afterwards, of her admirable bearing “calme 
et fikre comme une squaw dans vos forets vierges,” 
during the ordeal !) — the cousins kept side by side in 
silence. 

“It was nice of the dear old fellow to give you that 
trinket as he did,” remarked Miles, finally, with an odd 
tremor in his voice. “No one has been allowed to 
touch or see it since my grandmother died. Some 
time ago, when we were going through the formalities 
about my taking poor Dick’s place, he mentioned to 
me the family tradition concerning it, and asked 
if I’d any objection to — I’ll swear, Ursula, you’d 
better take my arm— you stumbled stepping off that 
curb.” 

“No, thank you, I prefer walking alone,” said the 

18 


274 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


young lady, who congratulated herself that she had 
effected a diversion at this point. 

“Just as you like. I’ll not obtrude myself, of course. 
As I was saying, it’s well known in the family those 
pearls have been given by the eldest son to his bride 
on her wedding-day, until my poor father broke the 
record. My grandfather told me it was his earnest 
wish — as a token of gratitude, you know — to give you 
the most precious thing he had, and I quite agreed 
with him.” 

Ursula’s pearls seemed to burn into her throat. 

“It wasn’t only for nursing him, he said, but for 
what you did for me.” 

“Miles, I forbid you to mention that dreadful day,” 
the girl cried, flaming at thought of an intervention so 
reckless of results. “I can’t bear to think of it.” 

“It almost seems as if you have been repenting ever 
since,” he answered bitterly. “As if you begrudge my 
having presumed to be alive. Really, Ursula, you are 
more trying than you know. For months, it has been 
growing worse and worse. When I remember my lit- 
tle old-time comrade who once would have put on 
page’s dress to follow me to the wars, and contrast her 
with this cool and haughty damsel, I think the 
world’s turned upside down.” 

No answer from Ursula. 

“If you were like other girls, you’d be touched by 
my telling you how I’ve looked forward to this meet- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


275 


ing. Many a time lately, in camp, the thought’s 
come to me of your sympathy, and I’ve felt as if 
hard lines are easier to bear.” 

Ursula, abandoning her defiant march, head in air 
and keeping her distance marked, drew nearer. With a 
quick movement, she slipped her hand within his arm. 

“That’s right, you little duck,” said Miles. “Now 
tell me, Nutty, why have you kept me at arm’s 
length.” 

“If I’m a duck, it is you who are a goose, Miles,” 
she answered ; and with that he was obliged to be con- 
tent. 

“Well, for fear you should go back again, I’ll make 
hay while the sun shines,” he said gayly. “Don’t walk 
so fast, dear; I’ve something I want to say to you — ” 

“It depends on what kind of a something it is; 
whether it’s worth the sacrifice of the waltz I might 
be having,” she replied. 

“It’s a secret. Something that I have told to one 
other person only — and it is she who has made me 
think you will care to hear. You know, Ursula, that 
I’ve just come from Bonnibel?” 

“I know it.” 

“She is prettier and lovelier than ever. You can 
understand when a man’s been boxed up in camp sur- 
rounded by a lot of rough fellows, and hasn’t seen a 
woman of his own kind for an age, what an angel like 
that must have seemed to me.” 


276 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


“I understand,” said Ursula, feeling faint and chill. 

“Well, when I met her again, and came under her 
spell, I forgot all my good resolutions to keep to 
myself what I didn’t mean to let get the upper hand 
of me, as things are now. It just seemed to burst 
from me — how for months, I’d been letting a hope 
grow in my heart that I might win the only woman in 
the world worth living for— her whose dear sweet face 
came to me on the battle-field when I lay expecting 
death — good God, Ursula, do you mean to say it 
hurts you like that to hear it?” 

With a fiery gesture of denial the girl loosened her 
arm from his. They were passing beneath a gas lamp 
and he saw the first look upon her face succeeded by a 
sort of pleading to be spared, like that of some dumb 
creature wounded unto death. 

“Ursula — darling — speak to me,” he said caress- 
ingly. 

“Not now.” 

“When? Only tell me when?” 

“I think you have overestimated my — what shall I 
say? — capacity as a confidante,” she stammered, and 
her voice sounded in her own ears strained and thin. 
“Some other time, perhaps. Just now, I am bending 
all the energies of my mind to the consideration 
whether or not our entry at the ball will be well-timed 
for the display of my new frock. I am quite certain 
of its impression on Gracie Gray !” 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


277 


Chilled and offended by her flippant speech, Miles 
withdrew into his shell and during the rest of the 
evening gave her no more of his society. When, after 
a prolonged disappearance from the gay scene that in 
outward show managed so well to cheat the eye of a 
belief in war-times, he finally emerged from the con- 
servatory with Miss Gracie Gray upon his arm, he 
found Ursula had gone home with other friends. 

Meeting him next day, she was cool and bright like 
one of the December days they were then passing 
through, and during his brief holiday gave him no 
chance to reopen a subject he was in sorry humor 
to discuss. 


CHAPTER IX. 


His first transport of wounded feeling having had 
due time to subside, Miles had recourse to Bonnibel — 
something perhaps on the principle of the Confederate 
General who met the accusation that he had put the 
South Carolina regiments of his division in the fore- 
front of the fight with the declaration, “Yes, I’ll send 
you to the front, and I’ll keep you there ; you got us into 
this fix; and, confound it, you’ve got to get us out.” 

Bonnibel, who with her boy had settled down for 
the winter at Rose Hill, heard with gentlest sympathy 
the young man’s fuming statement of his wrongs at 
his cousin’s hand ; and, when he had finished, said 
with a deeper rose-tint upon her cheek : 

“My poor, dear Miles, I could not have believed in 
such dullness of perception. Unless I am utterly at 
fault, your affair promises all that you could hope. 
Trust me, there is between you and Ursula only the 
shadow of a shade that a good straightforward talk 
will dissipate.” 

“It’s all very well to say so,” grumbled the General, 
“but you’ve no idea how fierce she was, and then 
whipped around like a weathercock and treated me — 
well, there’s no use denying I was taken off my feet. 

278 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 279 

The extraordinary thing, you know, is what she meant 
by it.” 

“Write and ask her,” suggested Mentor, a dimple 
showing through the blushes that had not ceased to 
come and go. 

This very simple solution of a mighty problem was 
by the young officer finally adopted. Sitting in his 
tent, he penned a long and manly letter to which the 
signature alone was lacking, when an orderly put into 
his hand a batch of mail matter. Out of an envelope 
addressed in Cousin Polly’s familiar hieroglyphs, he 
took a note written by Ursula: 

“Good-by, dear Miles; when this reaches you, I 
shall again have turned my back on Dixie. I go 
to-day by flag-of-truce boat to Fortress Monroe, 
thence northward to be with my poor Aunt Eleanor, 
who is dangerously ill. The summons came to me 
from my uncle, who has made all arrangements for my 
journey. When we meet again, you will have for- 
given my petulance. Put it away from you forever 
with the subject of our last talk, and let us be again, 
as always, true friends and cousins — God bless you, 
dear, good-by.” 

With a deliberate movement Miles tore the letter 
he had written into bits, and putting a match to the 
fragments watched it burn away into tinder. 

Weeks passed; and by Ursula, again plunged into 


280 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


the absorbing monotony of a sick room, her return to 
the South ceased to be thought of as an event for 
which a date could be reasonably set. Mrs. Court- 
land’s death was followed by the long and wearing 
illness of her husband, who, broken in spirit as in 
health, clung like a child to Ursula. 

A stronger contrast could not have been drawn than 
between the luxurious conditions surrounding her pres- 
ent service and those of the hospital in Richmond 
where she had, inch by inch, fought to wrest her 
adoptive father from the grave. Here, with servants 
at her call, trained nurses to succeed each other in 
forestalling the sufferer’s demand, she was, however, as 
much on duty as in the former case — this duty entail- 
ing a sacrifice of personal inclination that made it the 
more severe. Often, when pouring out the costly 
stimulant accepted with a grimace, or preparing the 
dainty morsels varied to tempt a capricious appetite, 
tears filled her eyes at thought of the meager provi- 
sion for the suffering at home, and of the strong aris- 
ing hungry from their meals. As well might Dead 
Sea apples have been the entries the chef continued 
to provide and the solemn butler to set forth upon 
her solitary board ! 

Not from the obsequious bearing of the servants and 
employees of the house did Ursula discover she was 
now looked upon as the heir of her uncle’s wealth. 
The first knowledge of this possibility came through 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


281 


relatives of Mr. Courtland, who, volunteering a visit, 
did not scruple to attack the lonely girl with charges 
of interested motives that wounded her to the quick. 
Bewildered, and driven to desperation, she made her 
arrangements to set out again, unprotected, for the 
South. Mr. Courtland’s excitement upon being in- 
formed of her projected movement brought on a 
seizure — coming out of which, he summoned his law- 
yer and, after sufficient provision for his relatives, dis- 
posed of the bulk of his fortune, to the care of safe 
trustees, for “his beloved niece” Ursula. Then, with 
piteous appeals to her charity toward a dying man de- 
pendent for all happiness upon her daily care, he 
wrung from her the promise to remain. 

Day after day, sitting in a dim room beside the half 
inanimate figure upon the bed, her heart strained at its 
leash in longing to be away sharing the fears, the sor- 
rows, the hardships of her own kin. Kind friends were 
not lacking to soothe the evident anguish of the girl, 
as at every step forward of military affairs it became 
more clear that might was crushing the effort for 
Southern independence. Her daily snatches at the 
newspapers were like stabs in a fresh wound. And at 
last, in the very hour when, holding tightly to her 
hand, praying her to keep by him till his feet entered 
upon the valley of the shadow, her uncle left her free 
to go, the news came to Ursula of the surrender of 
Lee to Grant ! 


282 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


The consternation conveyed by these tidings to her 
lonely expatriated heart, was shared by thousands upon 
thousands upon whom it burst with overwhelming 
effect within the limits of the States overpowered. Far 
and near, people living their ruined lives in ruined 
homes refused to believe it — crying out that, as in the 
Lord they had put their trust, He would still defend 
the Right. Some bowed to earth like broken stalks 
of wheat, others sat dry-eyed and obstinate, waiting, 
watching for news that might waken fresh hope in 
fainting spirits. Not until the soldiers of the outnum- 
bered army came in straggling groups back to their 
homes, faces telling the story of defeat lips could not 
speak, was the sentence accepted as irrevocable. 
Many of these men had for nights before the final 
scene at Appomattox known no sleep, and were at the 
moment of stacking arms and laying down their tat- 
tered battle-flags starving for the food supplied them 
by a generous victor. But whatever expressions of 
hate and rancor were uttered then, came not from 
the men of either of the armies which for four long 
bloody years had faced each other behind guns and 
musket barrels. After the surrender was announced, 
not a shout of triumph went up, not a salute was fired, 
not a strain of martial music heard in the camp of the 
victorious army, until the soldiers in gray had dis- 
banded and had gone their several ways. 

Such conduct, taken in connection with General 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 


283 


Grant’s allowance to the Confederates of their horses, 
side-arms, and personal effects, laid firm and broad the 
foundations of the kindly feeling on which is based 
the Union that was to be! 

To old Richard Throckmorton, in Richmond, had 
befallen the stirring experience of sight of that April 
day of the capture, when the blue of heaven was shut 
out by smoke-wreaths that rolled up from the burning 
town ; when amid the explosions of doomed war-ships 
in harbor, and of shells in the forsaken Confederate 
arsenals, the latter unceasing from dawn to dusk, the 
Union troops rode into Capitol Square and planted 
the Stars and Stripes there, within a wall of flame ; 
when the householders who were stanch adherents of 
the Southern cause closed the blinds and shutters of 
their homes, and went on their knees behind them in 
mourning for the dead ; when the streets, filled with 
flakes of fire and tinder, were possessed by a mad mob 
of marauding whites and negroes from the slums, 
joined by convicts escaped from the Penitentiary 
during the first alarm — all howling and chanting in 
drunken unison! 

For a few days after the occupation of the capital, 
there existed in the hearts of the hopeful a belief that 
“tout est perdu fors l’honneur ” was not yet to be 
written upon the Southern flag. Colonel Throckmor- 
ton, who had been in the confidence of the leaders, 
now, as he knew, scattered and in flight, or drawn up in 


284 FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 

the last ditch to face the enemy, had no such delusion. 
To him, surrounded with a sorrow that made all the 
rest seem light, came a soldier’s letter. Written in 
pencil upon a coarse yellow sheet, thrust into an 
envelope of wall paper, and stained here and there 
with blots that may or may not have resulted from 
exposure to weather, it has survived to be gazed at by 
a younger generation to whom it means little but a 
picturesque fragment of a past now rapidly blending 
with forgotten history: 

“Yes, it is true, dear grandfather, the Army of 
Northern Virginia is no more.' What I, personally, 
feel, is shared by some seven or eight thousand of my 
brothers-in-arms who held out till yesterday — we’ve 
fought and lost, and have no cause to droop our heads 
before those who’ve overwhelmed us, though I’m not 
going to say to you that the iron hasn’t entered into 
our souls, for you know better. But when I think of 
of you, and the class you represent, it seems you have 
the better right to bitterness of spirit — all you have 
given, like water poured upon the ground — your poor 
right arm — our dear old Dick — your home and fortune 
— sacrificed in vain. But for you, I’d be off to-morrow 
with a lot of the fellows who are wild to offer their 
swords to Maximilian. 

“Last night, after the worst was generally known, 
our men, having got some rations from the other side , 
rolled over on the bare ground, and fell dead asleep, 
like logs. For some days past, many of them have 
done their duty like somnambulists, — pinched faces, 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


285 


strained eyes, pallid skin, showing the continual 
marching and fighting, without sleep or proper food. 
When they awoke this morning, under a driving rain, 
to face the stunning consciousness of the surrender, 
the poor fellows were refreshed in spite of themselves. 
All around me, I hear talk of ‘what I intend to do 
when I get home’ ; but it must be owned the prospect’s 
blue enough, and many a fellow stops short and 
chokes over it. Some men, who during the whole 
four years have been continually in the field, go 
around wearing faces that are a sadder sight to me 
than death from a bullet or a saber cut. 

“Yesterday, when General Lee came back to his 
headquarters on his way from the meeting with 
General Grant to settle terms, we had a scene no man 
that saw it is likely to forget. His veterans, as they 
caught sight of the glorious old chief, swarmed around 
his horse, struggling to touch the General’s hand, his 
clothing, or his accoutrements. There was an attempt 
to cheer; but it was choked by the lump in every 
throat. He shook hands as fast as they came up, and 
with the tears running down his cheeks, said these 
words : ‘Men, we have fought through the war together. 
I have done the best I could. My heart is too full to 
say more.’ 

“They were crying all around as he rode off to his 
tent. I remembered Garibaldi at Palermo; but this 
was different. Those impetuous Latins expressed the 
fervor of the moment. Our fellows had followed Lee 
and tested him for years ; and to us he was greater in 
defeat than any other man could be in victory. He 
looked, sitting upon his horse in the full uniform put 


286 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


on for the interview with Grant, a model of the manly 
beauty that fires the popular heart. But it is the 
moral influence of the Christian gentleman, one felt 
most. His known wish that the troops should dis- 
band quietly, and going back to their homes try to be 
good citizens, has had an immense effect in determin- 
ing the temper of our men. 

“Well — even for you, it’s been like pulling teeth to 
get this much out of me. Perhaps, when in a few 
days I come to you in Richmond, it will be easier — 
‘The Last Edition of Lee’s Miserables,’* some wag 
called out at mess, this morning, and raised a sickly 
grin—” 

While the strains of martial music from the victor’s 
military bands were yet echoing through Richmond 
streets, a spare old man, sitting a rusty horse, rode 
slowly up the avenue of Flower de Hundred and in 
at the iron gates, swung back upon their hinges and 
overgrown with a tangle of roses and honeysuckle 
vines doing their best to conceal where the finials of 
both granite pillars had been shot away. Dismount- 
ing unattended, and tethering his mare to graze 
beneath a tree — for of stable or outhouse remained 
only charred foundations, around which the grass grew 
lush — he gazed wistfully at the ancient walls scarred 
with bullet marks, at the line of window-frames like 

* The army version of the title of Victor Hugo’s “ Les Miser- 
ables,” one of the few new books printed in Richmond during 
the war. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


287 


empty eye-sockets, at the yawning space whence the 
old oaken house-door had been removed to serve as a 
special target for the practice shots of gunboats on 
the river. Stepping across the threshold of his home, 
Richard Throckmorton stood knee deep in dead 
leaves that had drifted into the hall. His coming dis- 
turbed birds that had nested upon the carving of the 
frieze inside ; and by his cold hearth-stone a red squir- 
rel, bright-eyed and sympathetic, paused to give him 
welcome. Of the paneling once lining the hall, the 
greater part had been torn away by soldiers in search 
of imagined treasure. Half-way up the stairs, upon 
the landing where a cushioned seat had been the pet 
lounging place of merry generations, there remained 
of the wide window once above it a single pane of 
glass, bearing the names, scribbled with a diamond 
ring by little Nutty long ago, of “Ursula and Miles.” 

Standing where he had stood on the Christmas night 
that had seen the Yule-log die upon Flower de Hun- 
dred hearth, the old man bowed his head. Long he 
remained there in somber reverie ; then, hastily going 
through rooms and corridors where ghosts of remem- 
bered joys haunted the heavier furnishings that were 
left, he stepped out shivering into the April sunshine, 
and, crossing to the church-yard, sat down upon 
Dick’s grave and sobbed like a child. 

It is again April, and a year has passed since the war 
drums throbbed no longer and the battle-flags were 


288 


FLOWER BE HUNDRED. 


furled in Old Virginia. In the chief room of Timber- 
neck Manor House, sparsely fitted up with chairs and 
tables, but boasting a generous fire of logs in its deep- 
set chimney place, three men had assembled for their 
evening meal. 

Around the walls stained with damp and, despite 
the efforts of faithful Phyllis, apt to be garlanded with 
cobwebs, hung the most valuable of the family por- 
traits once seen at Flower de Hundred — a cruel stroke 
of Fate to transplant these beribboned, high-busked, or 
periwigged gentry from Kneller’s brush, into such drear 
surroundings — where, however, Madam Lydia looked 
prettier than ever, and Ursula, the shepherdess, made 
a bright spot upon the scene ! 

Hither, from the disheartening ruin of Flower de 
Hundred which he had actually no money to repair, 
Colonel Throckmorton had retired to live with his 
grandson Miles, and his old and devoted follower and 
friend, Parson, late Chaplain, Crabtree. 

Duke, the Flower de Hundred chef, who now 
caught the fish he cooked, and drummed for other eat- 
ables as indefatigably as did Caleb Balderstone; Jock, 
who worked out-of-doors, and kept up a garden plot ; 
and Phyllis, housemaid of general utility — took care 
that the creature comforts of the little family were 
not neglected. 

In the absence of Cousin Polly, forcibly expedited 
by the Colonel to act as chaperone for Ursula, now by 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 289 

the terms of her uncle’s will a young lady of indepen- 
dent means, on a tour through Europe, their good neigh- 
bor Mistress Tabby Hazleton drove dowq, now and 
then, to look after “Polly’s men folks.” These visits 
were not as frequent as Tabby and Tom might have 
wished, since it was not always they could spare a 
horse from the plow to harness to Tom’s old buggy. 
The stalls of Honey Hall stables were an empty show 
in these days, and Tabby’s egg-shaped yellow chariot 
gathered dust in the locked coach-house. War had 
not withered the good lady’s spirit in the least. Be- 
ginning life over again as humble farmers, she and 
her old husband were in their courageous activity a 
lesson to the community. Tom, brisk and cheerful, 
was observed to show signs of depression only when 
the re-establishment of regular passenger service on the 
James River boats restored to their home the wander- 
ing Vashti, who, weary of state as “a colored lady upon 
her travels” in the North, promptly took up again 
the rod of authority at Honey Hall. The most vivid 
expression of Tom’s resentment against his recent foes 
was because, “Egad, sir, those Yankees hadn’t the 
^punk to hold on to the old catermaran after they’d 
bamboozled her to go away with them !” 

Throughout the neighborhood, smoke was curling 
from disused chimneys; ex-soldiers were digging their 
own potato patches, or hoeing corn beside a lin- 
gering “contraband”; women, who had spent their 
19 


290 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


lives in the wake of numerous house servants, made 
butter, baked, swept, sewed from dawn to evening, 
thankful to lie down to rest in peace near the rem- 
nant of a family, out of hearing of those awful guns 
of which the echo would not, in years to come, die out 
of memory. 

Miles Throgmorton, who had entered upon the slow 
business of petty farming without capital or a sufficient 
staff, very much as a war horse might be supposed to 
see himself harnessed between the shafts of a country 
cart, had only accepted the inevitable. During the 
lifetime of his grandfather, duty and inclination alike 
must hold him just here. By contrast with that of 
many of his fellow officers scattered penniless, home- 
less, glad to secure by any occupation a bare subsis- 
tence, his lot was indeed one to be considered enviable. 
But Richard Throckmorton, while apparently acqui- 
escent to this condition of affairs for Miles, was in- 
wardly grieved and fretted. After much silent cogita- 
tion, a visit or two to his man of affairs in town, 
and, recently, a diligent correspondence with the same 
person, the Colonel sat down one evening to the sup- 
per table wearing an excited face. 

Miles and the Parson, doing full justice to Duke’s 
broiled shad and potatoes, followed by a ham omelet 
with waffles and such coffee as would have sustained 
the fame of a Parisian restaurateur, saw that the dear 
old man was laboring to disclose to them a new idea. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


291 


but forebore to urge him until he should see fit himself 
to broach the subject. 

When the table was cleared away, the lamp put in 
place, and Miles, throwing himself upon a horsehair 
couch that had seen better days half a century before, 
shaded his eyes with his hand and fell into reverie, the 
Colonel cleared his throat. 

“Miles, my dear boy,” he said tenderly, and then 
came to a halt. Something in the relaxed lines of the 
young man’s vigorous frame, the rough clothes he 
wore, his resigned abandonment of the place for which 
nature, society, and education had fitted him, thus to 
lead the life of a clod, without a future, and lacking 
present alleviation, touched the old boy’s gentle spirit 
with a keen regret that for a time unfitted him to speak. 

The Parson, seeing the turn of affairs, threw himself 
into the breach, and led the conversation off to the 
usual subjects of men of their condition at the time — 
the political outlook of the reunited States, the future 
of Virginia, the question of the negroes, the more than 
probable absorption of the old Southern element into 
that civilization of the masses that gave the mighty 
North its power; they deplored the confusion of ideas, 
the straits and stresses of the hour, that appeared to 
bewilder so many of their friends in their desire to 
know which way it was best to turn ; and then, as was 
generally the case, fell to fighting their battles over 


292 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


again till the dull room glowed with the scenes they 
had conjured up. 

“Bodykins ! Master Page,” quoted the Parson, put- 
ting down his pipe, to get up and walk the floor with 
his hands beneath his coat-tails. “Though I am now 
old and of the peace, if I see a sword out my finger 
itches to make one — though we are justices and doctors 
and churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our 
youth in us; we are the sons of women, Master Page.” 

The Colonel laughed, Miles caught the infection and, 
pulling himself together, sat up, and laughed too. 

In that favorable moment, the Colonel ventured to 
introduce his bombshell. 

“I did not happen to mention to you, did I,” said 
the gentle deceiver, “that I’ve sent my letter to 
McPheeters, telling him I have decided to close with 
his client’s offer?” 

“Grandfather!” 

“My dear sir!” said the Parson. 

“Yes,” said the Colonel, with composure. “No 
good could come of delay. We have talked of it long 
enough. The money will put life into the barren 
acres of Timberneck, and patch up this old barracks 
into something like a home. I reckon in a day or two 
we shall hear the new owner’s name.” 

“It’s for me you’ve sold Flower de Hundred, sir?” 
cried out Miles, in a husky voice. 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


293 


“My dear child,” said the old man very lovingly; 
“if you knew how glorious youth seems to me, how 
brief its season, how much more important the devel- 
opment of a human life to do good in its genera- 
tion, than any mere sentiment for what is past, you’d 
believe that I don’t regret it. Besides, we Virginians 
have been taught a stern lesson in this war — to 
put away what has been done for us, and to do in 
our turn what our descendants may point to with 
pride. I don’t want our line to drop with you, Miles; 
and I can’t suffer you to rust in such a scabbard while 
I have means to prevent it.” 

“But what a price to pay !” exclaimed his grandson. 

“A very good price for a shell like that, as prices go. 

I told McPheeters not to press it, if his client thought 
the sum too high,” answered the Colonel, purposely 
misunderstanding. “I fancy the new owner will be 
either some sentimentalist from the North who is 
enamoured of our lawn and trees seen from the river, 
or some Richmond man of another stripe from us, who 
has saved money during the war, and wants to invest 
in something ‘old and settled.’ No friend of ours 
could afford to buy anything in the way of real estate 
just now, that’s certain.” ♦ 

“I fear so,” said the Parson, breaking into the con- 
versation with a sudden hollow groan. “My dear sir, 
the plantation was represented in the first representa- 
tive legislative assembly in America, convened at 


294 FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 

‘James Citty in Virginia,’ July 30, 1619; was in the 
next generation acquired by your ancestor, and has 
never since been out of the family. Is it not a mat- 
ter to be weighed and measured — are there not other 
means — could not a sufficient sum be obtained for 
present uses by mortgaging — ” 

“Since it came into the family there has been no 
mortgage on the estate, my good Crabtree,” answered 
the Colonel mildly ; “and even if it could be done, 
which is unlikely, I think you should know my views 
on that subject well enough to be sure I shall not 
be the first to shadow the old place with debt. No, 
no, my mind is made up, and let no more be said. 
There was an offer for such furniture as still remains 
there, Miles; and as we have no room for it elsewhere, 
you will oblige me by going over at once, to make an 
inventory.” 

“Wouldn’t they buy in these?” cried the young 
man, the vein in his forehead swelling as he pointed 
to the portraits on the wall; “and the silver, and 
books? and King Charles’ medal might fetch a fine 
price at some dealer’s shop in Broadway.” 

“Not till I’m underground, Miles, lad,” answered 
the Colonel, with a forbearing smile. 

Miles, standing in the leaf-strewn hall, gazed about 
him ruefully. He had, at his grandfather’s bidding, 
come over from Timberneck to make note of the fur- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


2 95 


niture stored in the wings of which old Judy kept the 
keys, the main building having in chief part fallen a 
sacrifice to war. So sacred was to him the idea of his 
last ramble through the dwelling no longer his inheri- 
tance, that he had purposely avoided letting Judy 
know of his presence until his first emotion should be 
spent. 

The squirrel tenants, whose tribes had increased, 
scuttled tamely about his feet. From a smoke-tree 
crowned with roseate bloom near the open door, he 
heard the spring song of a cardinal bird, who with 
scarlet helmet and jet black whiskers made a glorious 
bit of color amid the surrounding green. He remem- 
bered his efforts once to catch and tame one of these 
wild-wood beauties of Virginia for little Ursula, and 
how she had cried over its dead body, and, with Vic 
as chief mourner, made it a royal funeral. Every- 
thing spoke of Ursula. Recalling her name brack- 
eted with his on the broken pane in the landing win- 
dow, he resolved to rescue and bear away with him 
the token of her trustful girlhood, when to her he was 
all in all — but, strangely enough, when he looked up for 
it, the pane was gone, and had, as the marks showed, 
been recently and carefully removed ! 

Miles went back to his post to wonder. By a coin- 
cidence he paused, uncertain, on the very spot where, 
at the Christmas Eve ceremonial “before the war,” 
Ursula had come to him of her own accord, looking 


296 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


into his face with a sorrow she could not speak. Ah ! 
why had she so changed that when he offered her his 
heart in manly fashion she should flout and forsake 
him, in a pet? And now that there was between them 
the great gulf fixed by her new wealth, it was doubly 
and trebly hopeless. But all the same, in him there 
had been no change; there could never be any 
change. 

A brisk patter on the leaf carpet caused him to look 
around, and Miles saw, running toward him from the 
dining-room, her bonnet askew and her cheeks as red 
as cherries, the immortal Cousin Polly ! 

“Miles, my own dear boy!” she cried, hugging and 
kissing him, “I was never so glad in all my life be- 
fore; when I spied it out there, I knew the horse in a 
minute. That willful girl of mine is so bent on mys- 
teries — we came down here like thieves in broad day- 
light, I told her — what she’ll say to me for telling on 
her, I’m sure I don’t know — but now that she’s got 
the place, it can’t matter so very much — Yes, indeed, 
from Baltimore to Richmond, and down the river 
almost without a stop, so wild she was — directly 
McPheeters telegraphed her that her offer had been 
accepted.” 

“My dearest Cousin Polly, you are getting me 
deeper into the mire. I don’t understand you in the 
least. I thought you and Ursula were in England. 
It never occurred to me that she — answer me one 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 297 

question, only, to set me straight — is Ursula McPhee- 
ter’s client?” 

“Indeed and she is, and a pretty time I have had 
keeping the secret. After Richard refused to take a 
penny of her money, as a loan or otherwise, she was 
nearly ill with disappointment. Then the idea of buy- 
ing Flower de Hundred possessed her. She said it 
broke her heart to have to make the offer as from a 
stranger. We came from England three weeks ago, 
because of a letter from the lawyer saying he had no 
doubt of her immediate success. This morning, when 
we left Richmond in the boat, she was so excited I was 
afraid people would think I had charge of somebody a 
little ‘off.’ My dear, I’m that thankful to see you, 
and the old place, even if it’s like this. She’s going to 
put everything exactly as it was before, she says, ex- 
actly ; only what is absolutely necessary is to be new. 
And how’s my darlin’ Colonel — and the Parson — I can’t 
rest till we get over to Timberneck; but Ursula says 
not until to-morrow ; we are to camp out here, to- 
night. I’ll tell you what it is, Miles, now you are 
here, I verily believe if you ask Ursula she will let us 
go to spend the night at Timberneck, for how I’m to 
stand not seeing Richard till to-morrow, passes me.” 

“You dear little soul,” said the young man, touched 
by her affectionate incoherence. “You may be sure I 
shall do my best.” 

“Go look for her, then; she’s out somewhere — good- 


298 FLOWER DE HUNDRED . 

ness knows where. She’s been sittin’ this half hour on 
a cricket in Judy’s cabin, listening to the old woman 
talk of you. Miles, my dear — if I only dared! If I 
only knew what it was that passed between Ursula 
and you ! We’ve had a letter from Bonnibel, telling 
of her engagement to Colonel Chamberlayne — not the 
Chamberlaynes of Gloucester, but still an admirable 
man, and they say wealthy, and poor dear Bell seems 
so happy — and now, Ursula cant keep on thinking 
that you’re going to marry Bell!” 

Cousin Polly, in her excitement, had let a cat of 
respectable dimensions out of the bag, and stood back, 
rather alarmed by the expressions succeeding each 
other upon her hearer’s face. 

“So it was that !” he cried, for a moment exultant. 
Then, at once, a cloud came over him. 

“Listen, Cousin Polly,” he said, after a short pause; 
“I have loved Ursula and wanted her for my wife for 
so long I don’t even know when it began — but I 
would no more ask her, now, than I would put my 
hand into the fire.’” 

“Dear, dear, why did she go to all the trouble and 
cut her finger, too, to get that pane of glass out,” said 
vexed Miss Polly. “But the least you can do, Miles, 
is to go to look for her.” 

Miles, who for a despairing swain was in a strangely 
exhilarated mood, laughed and obeyed. Only to look 
at her seemed such a glorious prospect, the conse- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


2 9 p 


quence was naught ! He found her leaning over the 
decrepit fence of the home paddock, stroking the nose 
of old Orthodoxy, who, in his lean and shambling age, 
had been consigned to this haunt of clover. Miles 
saw her kiss the star in the old charger’s forehead, be- 
fore, hearing his footstep, she turned and ran forward 
to meet him with a face of exquisite delight. 

There is none to say how it came to pass that Miles 
renounced his stern resolve to leave Ursula to spinster- 
hood, for him ! They were certainly made man and 
wife within a reasonable time after this interview. 
Nobody thought of consulting the only eye-witness — 
Orthodoxy — and the old horse has lain these many 
years under the daisies, with an inscription on a board 
set over him to state that '‘for his faithful service in 
carrying General Miles Throckmorton, when wounded, 
from the battlefield of Gaines’ Mill, this tablet is 
erected by the General's loving sons.” The execution 
of this work of art is original, and the spelling hardly 
reflects credit upon the boys’ preceptor, a seedy old 
man who adored them and was never happy when 
they were not tagging at his heels. 

The lads in return, loved Parson Crabtree dearly. 
But there was one who in that reunited household had 
the best tenderness of every heart. The Colonel lived 
to a great age, and preserved his vigor of body and 
sweetness of nature to the last. 


300 FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 

Among the guests who to-day come and go, as of 
old, at Flower de Hundred, the Throckmortons have 
lately welcomed Colonel Cunningham, the English 
volunteer in half a dozen wars, a grizzled oldster now, 
whose tales of adventure in various lands the boys find 
particularly to their taste. 

Miles, the oldest son of Miles and Ursula, who has 
no love of farming, talks of going to Mexico to be a 
civil engineer. Their second son, Dick, has a scheme 
for reclaiming the overflowed marsh lands on the 
estate and putting them into wheat, which will keep 
him occupied at home. Their daughters, two charm- 
ing young women, everywhere admired, have been 
recently upon a visit to their relative, Mrs. Chamber- 
layne, one of the ornaments ot the fashionable world 
at Washington, where her husband holds high place. 
There is gossip about a match between one of the 
Flower de Hundred girls and young Guy Throck- 
morton, who made such a hit in some land speculations 
in the far West the other day, and who may come East 
to settle after all. 

Mrs. Hazleton still lives at Honey Hall. Since the 
death of old Tom she has comforted her loneliness 
by filling the house with ailing people who 'need a 
change,’ and ‘poor things whose fortunes were ruined 
by the war.’ Helen Willis opened a school for girls, 
which has continued to do well; old Judith lives with 
her, of course. Many of the Flower de Hundred ser- 


FLOWER DE HUNDRED. 


301 


vants came back at the close of the war, and asked for 
employment on the place. Those we have seen more 
closely associated with the family, resumed their re- 
spective industries about the house. 

Flower de Hundred looks, to-day, very much as it 
did before the war — and so, for that matter, does 
Cousin Polly! 


THE END. 


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